Reflections of a Character
by ColdSpike2475
Summary: Ralph attempts a visit to his best friend on his week off from the arcade. Unfortunately, the Vanellope he bumps into isn't from Slaughter Race or Litwak's arcade for that matter. Chasing after her, Ralph and his true friend, Vanellope, discover some dark secret looming on the internet and set out to set things right! Warnings: Digital Drug Use and very dark themes.
1. Prologue: The Other Her

"The internet," Ralph said in awe, having just got off the tram from his arcade. He glanced around and checked the time before sitting on a nearby bench.

Ralph yawned while scratching the underside of his armpits. He glanced around nervously, hoping no one had taken notice, but several strange looking internet based fellows certainly had, glancing at him with shameful stares. "What are you looking at?" he asked irritably and they hurried away. He sighed and shook his head.

"C'mon, girl, where are you?" he muttered to himself. The wrecker moaned and dug out his little Vanellope Communicator Phone, something that he called it, not that it was its actual name. He considered calling her but thought better of it. "She's not late yet, relax… just take a seat and- wait, is that her?"

Ralph blinked, looking through the ridiculously sized crowd of internet users, advertisers, and various game characters while blinking in astonishment. There, skipping- not just casually skipping but full on smiling and giggling was his Vanellope. The raven-haired candy munching girl.

"...What is she wearing?" he wondered out loud. The big wrecker slowly followed her as she hadn't seemed to notice him yet. Examining her new outfit, something seemed strange about it. It was incredibly similar to her trademark mint green jacket with the candy licorice string pulls, only it wasn't mint green, for that matter, it wasn't even colored. The whole getup had a gray hue to it all, but perhaps more importantly, it seemed tattered and covered in rips, tares and even dirt. What made things even more striking was the candy red colored licorice was most certainly not brightly hued, but a deep black.

Shaking his head in confusion, Ralph sped up his pacing and eventually was able to catch up to her. "Hey, kid! Where ya going?"

"Hmm?" the girl murmured, glancing up at Ralph in a quizzical manner.

Wreck-It Ralph sighed and smiled. _Gosh, haven't heard her speak in person in ages. We need to do these meets more often_ , he thought with a warm smile. Just hearing her voice first hand was far better than their communicator.

"C'mon kid, I got a whole day planned out for us!" he exclaimed while waving his hand toward the internet search bar. The girl smiled and nodded, giving the wrecker a strange dreamy look as she wavered unbalanced from side to side.

"K- kay…" she muttered in a dazed state.

Ralph tilted his head quizzically down at her. "You uh, feeling alright, kid? You look kind of… I dunno, different?" he said, unsure of his own statement.

Vanellope broke down giggling, she outright laughed for a full on minute. It went on for so long that Ralph joined in rather awkwardly, still not really sure what she found so funny.

"I feel great!" she exclaimed, though yelled was more like it. She let loose another fit of giggles and it was then that Ralph noticed something else.

"Uh, what happened to your hair? I don't think I've seen it this bare before, kid. You take a shower or…?" he trailed off when he suddenly realized that she was barely paying attention. Her hair, which always consisted of brightly colored candy decorations were all but gone, though a few pieces of mini jawbreakers that were half eaten did remain. If that wasn't enough, her signature candy licorice braid was completely missing, leaving her hair pulled down and looking rather ragged.

"Sh- shower?" she asked, her voice sounding slurred. "Ohhh, I haven't had one in forevers! You got one?!"

Ralph was completely taken aback by this. _What the heck is wrong with her?!_ "Uh, I got one at home, but kid, I'm supposed to be the stink breath, not you…" he muttered while scratching his head nervously.

Again, the same fit of giggles only this time she did something Ralph had never watched her do in the entire time he knew her, she drooled. He shook his head in astonishment as his best friend drooled over her dirty and ragged clothes while still laughing up a storm. "Stinky breath… heh, stink."

Ralph pinched the bridge of his nose and moaned. "Vanellope, what's gotten into you?! Why are you… why are…" he trailed off as he watched the giggling brat glitch out of control a few times.

He blinked, and blinked again and even went so far as to blink a third time. Her glitch, the glitch he had grown so accustomed to seeing was always blue. It always, always, always had a nice blue hue to it. What he saw was not the pixelated mess of blue three-dimensional pixels that covered her face. No. He clearly saw a mess of hot red colored particle effects, electricity if he wasn't mistaken, appear around her eyes, face and even hands. They had gone skin deep, and from the looks of her reaction, it must have hurt her immensely as she was wincing in pain.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow! Dammit, I hate that!" she screamed which made him gasp.

"Hey! Watch that language, kid! What's wrong with you today?! Why are you so… why are you such a mess?"

"I…" she tried to explain but suddenly hiccuped and her entire body was wracked with an insanely powerful looking red glitch. She started panting and wheezing while clutching her head for dear life. "Stupid glitches!" she screamed again and as if on schedule another glitch wracked her body and another.

"Hey hey, kid! Relax will ya… people are starting to stare," he noted, glancing around at the other users. As he said this, Vanellope was on the verge of tears, nursing her head while rubbing it in tiny circles.

After nursing her head for a minute, she blinked and glanced up at the giant video game character, blinking in astonishment. Her eyes widened in surprise as she looked up at Ralph as if she only just now noticed his existence. She wiped away the excess drool from her dress and shook her head in confusion.

"Who the hell are you?!" she asked, her voice raising just a few notches higher than he would have liked.

"What? What the heck are you talking about, kid? It's me… Ralph, y- your best friend?"

Ralph took a few hesitant steps forward, while Vanellope started backing up in fear. She glitched again, though this time it remained exclusively around her mouth.

"J- juust please l- leave, Ra-lph. I… I have to leave." she said, her voice wracked with fear as she stuttered her way through a glitched filled sentence.

Ralph had never seen his friend, his favorite little kid in the whole universe act in such a manner. He felt scared beyond belief as he tried to reach out, but something from behind stopped him.

"Hey, Ralphie boy! You ready to roll?"

"Huh?" Ralph whipped around and, there she, Vanellope von Schweetz, his sweet little girl and best friend. Standing there with a gleaming smile, her clothes mint green, in a very pristine state and her hair dolled up with candy decorations. Just like he remembered her.

"Ralph? Earth to Ralph?!" she said while waving her freakishly tiny hands in his face.

Immediately Ralph whipped around and spotted the false Vanellope running off into the distance.

"Hey, who are you…" the little one trailed off upon noticing a literal clone of herself running away from them. "Ralph… who the hay is she?!"

Finally, Ralph snapped out of his daze and made a choice. He grabbed Vanellope and lugged her onto his shoulder before running off toward the clone.

"Hey, watch it, you big lug! What's going on? Why are we chasing her?!"

Still running at full speed, Ralph merely shook his head. "There's no time to explain, kid, but we gotta catch up to her! Now!"

Vanellope wanted to protest more, but deep down she trusted him and she nodded quietly. Ralph was no stranger to weaving through crowds, though he took care as to not actually hurt anyone in his way, even if he easily could, given his immense virtual size.

"Ralph, that way! She went down there!" his impish friend yelled while pointing down a random alleyway. They both spotted a red glowing hue coming from the same direction and he turned into it. "Ralph, what's wrong with her? I- is she a virus?"

"I don't know, kid," he said while running and turning down random alleyways. Each turn made their surroundings darker and darker, but it was easy to spot her in the distance with how often their target glitched. "Look she just showed up and I thought she was you an- and something was wrong with you," he explained.

"How could you think that was me, stink brain?"

"Uh, maybe the fact that she looks exactly like you, fart feathers!"

They turned another corner as the girl sped up, glitching left and right. "Please! Why would I ever dress like that? And was she drooling?"

Ralph stopped in his tracks, looking around for the clone Vanellope. "Uh, yeah, yeah she was drooling."

The alleyway they found themselves in was quite a dealer darker than they were used to. Sleazy looking users who twitched and glitched around the place would occasionally walk by, along with some coded characters that did not look friendly in the slightest. The duo looked up, trying to make heads or tails of the place, but they were surrounded by brick buildings and random assortments of websites which had been shut down long ago.

"R-Ralph, let's get out of here, okay?" Vanellope said, her breath sounding shaky. "I- I don't like this place."

Ralph sighed and nodded. "Yeah, yeah okay, kid. I guess we lost her…"

Ralph wasn't stupid, die outside your game and that's it: Game Over. The internet, while mostly safe, did not count as either of their games in the slightest. The least safe place you could find on the web would be the Dark Web; a place where illegal activities took place, both from its users and from other code characters like themselves.

"I'm sorry, kid. I just wanted to do the right thing," Ralph said while glancing up at her.

She gave a hesitant smile and nodded. "I know, stink brain," she said with a quiet giggle. "But not here, I don't think I could ever live with myself if you… if you died," she muttered.

C'mon, Ralph. You gotta be brave, for her. He smirked, smirked even. "Kid, I'm not going anywhere, got it? And it would take a lot more than some criminals in the stupid Dark Web to take this wrecker down. Now let's go- youch!" He screamed as he stepped on something hard and sharp.

He jumped in the air while nursing his foot, hopping on it and yelping over and over. Vanellope held on for dear life. "Stupid can!" he screamed.

"Can?" Vanellope jumped down from him and examined the offending object. It was a strange looking canister that was mostly empty, what tiny amount of liquid remained glowed a deep dark red color. She thought back to the strange clone of her and realized that not only did she have the same canister stored in her jacket pocket, but a glint of blood colored stains had littered her clothing. "I think this came from her, Ralph," she said rather seriously. She held it up to him while Ralph examined the thing.

Sighing, he pocketed the strange object and picked her up. "C'mon, stinky breath. Let's get out of here, pronto."

* * *

 **Anyone wishing to discuss WiR fics, story ideas or just to chat about writing, I have created a new Discord channel which can be found here:** **discordDOTgg/fkE5SnT (just replace the DOT with a .)**


	2. Chapter One: Be Strong

They both walked back in utter silence, even when the pleasant surroundings of the search bar and the Google home area came into view. Eventually, they were forced to stop as they both sighed.

Vanellope broke the silence. "So, that was weird," she noted.

"Yeah, yeah it was weird."

"I… I didn't think I'd ever see another me before. I guess I never imagined it could even happen."

Ralph nodded. "Well, you know how arcades work. There are probably dozens of you out there."

She looked up in a worried expression. "Only dozens? That's it?"

"Uh, or hundreds, maybe thousands. Look, I don't know. The point is, the users make more than one machine. So it's not impossible to see what we saw. But… that was so weird."

She twirled around and glitched over to his shoulders. "You said she was acting funny. What'd ya mean?"

"You mean other than her drooling on herself?" Ralph glanced down to the empty canister, twirling it in his freakishly huge hands. "I… I think she was high, kid. High on drugs."

She blinked and tilted her head quizzically. "Uh, what's a drug? And she didn't look very high to me, looked kind of low..."

"No it's…" he trailed off and thought about it.

Ralph blinked and giggled. _Well, she is just a kid,_ he thought. He always appreciated his friend's naive nature, it was refreshing how she saw things. Just like a child. _But she is a child,_ he noted in his head.

A child who was now rudely knocking on his skull over and over. "Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello!"

Clenching his teeth and rolling his eyes. "Yes, what is it, my lady?"

"Oh, sorry, was just wondering where your brain went? You sure you're okay?" she asked, hanging upside down off of his head, staring at him face to face.

"Never better," he lied. Ralph set her down on the ground, thinking. _She's a kid, which means any other Vanellope are kids. If she's using this stuff… I gotta find out why or how she even got a hold of it._ Vanellope was now skipping around happily as they walked, though unlike the previous clone of the impish girl, her coordination was far more balanced.

"Well, how do you even know what this stuff is? No offense, barf breath, but, uh… you're not the most knowledgeable game character there is." He tried to argue but she held up a tiny hand. "Relax, I don't mean to call you dumb… for once. It's just you usually only hang out in Litwak's and it's not the biggest arcade in the universe."

It was a solid argument, he figured. "Well, your game wasn't around for the weird drug scar messages. But a lot of our machines used to warn the users about things called drugs and how only _losers_ used them. And kid? She did _not_ look like a winner in my book. 'Sides, I've heard a few guys at tappers talk about these," he noted, twirling the spent canister in his hand.

She nodded, seemingly deep in thought. So deep that her face scrunched up in annoyance with her tiny tongue sticking out.

"Uh, look, kid. I know we planned to hang out today since the arcade has the week off and all," he said, dreading how she was gonna react.

She blanched at him. "Ralph… what's this about."

He sighed. "I hate doing this, but I want you to get back to your game, now."

She halted in her steps. "What?! But you promised we'd hang out today! I had plans!" she yelled, looking downcast and hurt.

Ralph smiled while using his freakishly long finger to tilt her chin up. "Ah, kid. You know I'd never abandon ya, right?"

She pouted. "Yeah, sure sounds like it, barf brain!"

"I don't know what's going on with that other you, with that kid. Until I give the go, I want you back in your game where it's safe. Okay?"

She grunted her teeth and fumed. "I can take care of myself, you big buffoon! I may be a kid, but I was left alone for, well, forever in that stupid Sugar Rush game. I'm coming with you!"

"I…" he trailed off and thought about it. Not letting her get her way in the past had never ended well between the two. _She's a capable girl, Ralph. Just trust her for once…_

Finally, he smiled while offering his arm to her.

Her eyes lit up. "You mean it? I can come?!"

"Well, I'm just going to the search bar to get some answers. I guess it can't be that unsafe."

She glitched up to his shoulder and smiled ecstatically. "Let's go, munch butt!"

* * *

"Hello KnowsMore, how you been?" Vanellope exclaimed.

The purple coded wizard of knowledge beamed down at her. "I've been well, thank you kindly, young miss."

"Listen, uh, we're wondering where this might have come from?" she said while pointing to the dripping red canister in Ralph's hands.

The knowledge-based mascot gasped while backing away as quickly as he could. "Wh- where did you get s- something so v-v-vial!" he spat, his voice stuttering like crazy.

Ralph nervously glanced down at Vanellope who shared a quick glance. "Well, a, uh a little girl dropped it. A girl her age, KnowsMore," he admitted.

His eyes widened in shock as he shook his head. "That's horrible. Listen you two, that sort of thing can only come from The Dark Web. It's viral code, designed to mess with an avatar's inner self. It could screw someone up permanently, or worse, get them deleted."

The little racer backed away, horrified. "What? Deleted how?!" Vanellope said.

"It's practically a virus, an addictive one at that. If anyone was under the influence of one these wretched things and they ran into an anti-virus scanner, it would be game over for them."

"Why the hay would anyone ever use one of these, then?!" she asked him. At this, despite KnowsMore's nature in providing knowledge, he hesitated.

Ralph decided it was high time to interject. "Well, kid, it's nasty code. It… it makes you feel good, really good, but you have to keep using it or bad things start to happen to you and your, well… code," he explained in the best manner he could think of.

KnowsMore nodded rather solemnly. "Which is precisely why avatars should steer clear of them. If a child like her has truly gotten a hold of one of those, well, then it's likely not going to end well for them," he stated in a downcast manner.

Ralph and Vanellope shared a sidelong glance, both looking utterly depressed. Vanellope, in particular, couldn't believe what she was hearing.

They left the search bar in a hurry and found a nearby quiet bench to relax on. Vanellope had actually started using his freakishly large knee as a makeshift pillow while she contemplated everything.

"Hey, Ralph?"

"What's up, kid?"

"W- why do you think she's even here?"

"The other you?" he asked and she nodded. "Well, you're here I mean I dunno."

"Yeah, I'm here because my programming got screwed with and I'm not a prissy princess like the game wanted me to be. I left my game behind because I found something better. Just because there's a million of me out there, doesn't mean they're just like me!"

"Well I… I guess. I dunno, kid. Maybe her game got unplugged and she ended up here?"

It didn't seem like too far of a stretch considering how they found the internet. Vanellope nodded while cuddling closer to his leg.

"She really seemed in a bad way, kid. It's bugging me."

"Because she looks like me?" Vanellope questioned, glancing back up at him.

"I thought you said she didn't?" he teased.

She snorted. "Whatever."

 _What if Vanellope had ended up like her,_ he thought to himself.

"What ya thinking about?"

He groaned, knowing full well that such a young child did _not_ need to know about anything involving drugs. "Look, I'm sorry this, you know, ruined our day together."

She snorted. "You really are a stink brain, huh? You didn't ruin anything, okay? Yeah, it got weird, but that's not anyone's fault. I had fun… in a weird way, I guess," she admitted bashfully.

"You did?" he asked in a confusing manner. Thinking back on it, she simply nodded.

"Yeah, because I got to be with you," she murmured with a shy smile. The adorable racer snuggled closer into his arms and sighed with content. "I… I dunno."

"Listen, not to harp on you, kid, but if all you want is to be with me, why'd leave the arcade?"

She sighed. "I wasn't… I wasn't happy with Sugar Rush. Too many bad memories, I guess."

Vanellope looked away, ashamed of herself. Ralph had a hunch she was keeping things inside, secrets she would never tell anyone but maybe him. She yawned and buried her face into his arm again.

"C'mon, kid, let's get ya home," he said warmly while carrying her over toward her new game: Slaughter Race.

"Nah sleepy…" she muttered tiredly.

"Sure you aren't, munchkin."

As they walked in silence, she shifted a bit around his arms. "Ralph?"

"What is it, kid?"

"Love you… stink brain," she mumbled.

He patted her back with his free hand as gently as he could and nodded. "Love you too, dirty-haired brat." Which only made her smile wider.

* * *

Ralph carefully tiptoed up to her new apartment, a place she shared with her new best friend, Shank. He spotted her bed, easy given how vastly different its design was from the rest of the world. While she had opted to try and blend in, it was clear that Vanellope still had a like for her old candy kingdom. With brightly colored bed sheets, candy-themed posters and plenty of other sugar-themed objects which littered her neck of the building. The rest of the place was anything but bright and cheery looking since it was basically a thug themed garage for Shank and her gang.

He smiled and gently tucked the ex-princess into her bed with her happily snoozing away.

"Was wondering when she'd get back, Ralph."

Ralph whipped around, finding the virtual leader of Slaughter Race, Shank. She stood there with a smug smile with her hands firmly grasped on her hips.

"Oh, uh yeah, sorry about keeping her out late and all…"

The woman shrugged. "You know she talks about you so much. It's a shame your arcade can't just… I dunno, be here, on the internet."

Ralph sighed and nodded. "Yeah… listen, Shank? I know I've said this a lot to you, but I really do appreciate you taking care of her. You know when I can't," he said, muttering the last part.

"Yeah well- Ralph! What the heck is this?!" she said in a harsh whisper. She had reached out and yanked the empty canister out of his hands. "Are you doing digital drugs?!"

"Woah, easy there, Shank I-"

"Because I swear to the users if you are-"

"Enough," he said, making sure not to keep his voice too loud. "Can we talk about this downstairs? And I am not doing… those, I promise."

She gave him a skeptical stare and then eventually nodded, motioning for him to follow. She motioned for him to take a seat on her couch, which he reluctantly did though that left zero room for her.

"Okay, spill it. What is this about, Ralph?" she asked while motioning to the canister.

He took a deep breath and sighed. "I was waiting around for Vanellope, earlier this morning, just like we planned. I thought she was late and I was about to call her when I found her, or so I thought…"

Shank tilted her head to the side. "What do you mean, Wrecker? Thought?"

"It was another Vanellope von Schweetz, Shank. From another arcade."

The gruff racer nodded, her eyes widening a little bit. "I… see. That doesn't explain this."

"I'm getting to that. Anyway, I greeted her but she was acting super funny, well, like she was high on those things," he admitted. Shank gasped.

"No…"

Ralph explained everything he saw about the other Vanellope, how she acted when she got scared and how they tried to catch up to her. And how the canister got into their possession.

Shank slowly slipped onto the other couch, her eyes frozen in shock. A child? Using drugs? A child as young as Vanellope?! Impossible. A child that essentially _was_ Vanellope?!

"There's something else, Shank," Ralph muttered.

 _More, there was more?!_

"She glitched in front of me, but this wasn't any cute superpower, it looked painful. Vial, red, like a-"

"Like a virus," Shank finished.

"Y- yeah, just like a virus," Ralph replied, looking suddenly ashamed of himself. He had tampered with viruses before, thinking he had been doing the right thing. That was a mistake he would never make again.

Ralph slumped against his couch and moaned. "What do I do, Shank? If I go try and find this… this girl and help her-"

"Woah, woah, woah, little man. Who said anything about that? Are you nuts?!"

"...What?" Ralph couldn't believe what he was hearing.

She marched forward and pointed her finger accusingly on him. "You want to march off to creator knows where just to find this… this girl, that you don't even know, Ralph. And you're gonna leave Vanellope. What if you get hurt? What if you get derezzed?!" her voice rose a few notches higher with each word, making him flinch.

He looked down like a child being scolded by their parent but said nothing.

"You mean the world to Vanellope, Ralph. What do you think she would do with herself if you vanished?"

At first, he considered the darker meaning in her words, mulling them over and groaned. "She'd follow me. She'd run out to find me…"

"Exactl-"

"What's going on?"

Both of them whipped their heads around and found a sleepy looking Vanellope walking down the stairs. She rubbed her eyes and yawned a bit. "Heard some shouting."

"Uh, nothing's going on. Just talking," Ralph said in an incredibly nervous manner.

Vanellope scanned the two and was about to turn around when her eyes locked onto the spent drug canister on the table. "Talking, huh? About what?" she asked her adorably tiny hands on her hips.

Ralph drew a blank. "Uh…."

Shank pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "Vanellope, just please go to bed."

She pouted and shook her head. "You're going after her, aren't ya?!"

"Well, I…" Ralph shared an uncomfortable stare with Shank and eventually nodded. "Yeah, kid. I'm going after her."

Instantly the little pixie sized racer glitch teleported over to his shoulder, fully donned out in her traditional mint green jacket and tights. "Alright, Ralphie Boy. You really wanna go rescue her then I'm coming with ya!"

Shank scoffed, giving the wrecker an angry stare. As if to say _do something_!

"Kid, I'm going down to the Dark Web. You know the place that scared the jebbies out of ya?"

While it was a good point, Vanellope stood firm. "If you're going, I'm sticking to ya like syrup! No, if, ands or butts about it!" she exclaimed while playfully wiggling her butt in his face.

But there was no giggles to follow, only deeply rooted frowns from both of her friends. "Why are you both looking at me like that? What? You don't think I can take care of myself?"

"Vanellope! Where I'm going is dangerous. Simple. And-"

"Save it! If it's dangerous then I wanna be there to protect _you_ , booger breath!"

"Protect me?! Kid, I've eaten cherries out of _Pac-Man_ bigger than you!"

"Size isn't everything," she argued and glitched back over to his shoulder. "Can you glitch? Can you teleport?" she asked rhetorically then shook his head for him from side to side with her tiny hands. "Sides, with how big you are, you'll stick out like a sore thumb!"

He snorted. "Oh, and a candy munching little driving pixie fits so naturally in with the internet's most despicable scum?"

"Why you…" she started, her facing turning beet red from anger. Her body full on glitched out of control as she seethed and panted, trying to relax. "I'm going, Ralph. And you can't stop me."

Both adults responded in unison, "NO!"

Vanellope jumped back in shock and glitched again. "You can't tell me-"

"No, you're right, Vanellope," Shank butted in, standing over her like a protective parent. "We can't tell you what to do. But I wish you would listen and stay put," she started and the little racer tilted her head in silence. "You know there used to be another gamer here, another friend. Shrill started going down and making friends with the wrong sort, down in the Dark Web. He- he got addicted to those… _things_ ," she spat. Vanellope stiffened up, looking up at Shank with a worried expression. "And as much as I believe you when you say you can look after yourself, I don't think either of us could live with ourselves if something happened to you," she declared, her eyes closed.

Vanellope hesitated, deep in thought as her eyes searched around, searched for an answer. "I…" she knew what she wanted to say, she just wasn't sure about blurting something out, for once.

"I won't stop you, hun. But I know you'll do the right thing," she finished then stood up and gave a silent nod to Ralph before departing.

Vanellope slumped into a chair and sighed.

"Kid- No, Vanellope," he started, gaining her full attention. "You know we love you," he started and she went to rebuttal, no doubt to say it back, but he held up his hand and she buttoned up her lip. "I know you can take care of yourself, hey, you're stronger than me!"

She looked up, a deep solemn expression etched on her face. She wanted to retort, she wanted to say something, anything. Instead, she nodded.

"You're clever, you're sweet, you're rambunctious, but more importantly you're strong. But I need you to be more than clever I-"

Vanellope reached her tiny hand out to silence him, resting on his large set of hands. "I get it, Ralph. I'll stay, for you."

The response was instantaneous, Ralph brought her in for a code crunching hug. There was nothing else to say.

Vanellope sniffed and slowly let go. "Just… come back in one piece, okay you big lug?"

Ralph gave her a sad smile and slowly nodded. "Hey, I'm the wrecker here. Not some scum from the internet. I'll be back, kid. Before you know it."

He started to leave, but Vanellope's hand remained firmly grasped in his own. "Do you even know where to start looking?"

At this Ralph smiled.

* * *

 **So, that was chapter one. Normally I try to keep word length consistent and usually that means each chapter of my stories caps at around five thousand words, but this one is just three and maybe that will be the norm. Who knows, but I think it's far more important to have more consistent updates anyway.**

 **What do you all think? I know this chapter didn't focus on the other strange Vanellope, but I'm getting to that! I promise.**

 _On a side down, the non-altered cover art for this fic comes from the user "kaiyuan" over on DeviantArt!_

 _Also,_

 **Anyone wishing to discuss WiR fics, story ideas or just to chat about writing, I have created a new Discord channel which can be found here:** **discordDOTgg/fkE5SnT (just replace the DOT with a .)**


	3. Chapter Two: The Wasteland

Ralph weaved his way through the internet crowd, ignoring the user avatar stares and looking for just the right address. _C'mon,_ _J.P. Spamley, you gotta be here somewhere..._

Their new friend on the internet was a strange one, though he definitely seemed to possess a good heart. Especially when compared to the various scummy popup advertisements that lived in the upper levels of the internet. _Though he does have some dark connections_ , he thought, knowing that it could be his ticket to locating the other Vanellope. It was a simple plan, ask him for help or ask if he knows someone that could help.

He started walking through a more populated section of the web, naming off various buildings which represented random websites. "C'mon, Spamley… where's that stupid building," he muttered to himself. They had only visited it twice in their lives and Ralph knew he didn't have the best memory.

After what felt like an eternity, he finally spotted the familiar advertisement "Get Rich Playing Video Games" plastered on a dinky looking website building. Smiling, Ralph pushed his way through more crowds and practically busted his way inside.

The green figure was hunched over a virtual computer, clicking through various things and typing away. He didn't even look up. "Not now, whoever ya are. A bit busy."

"That any way to treat a friend?" Ralph asked, smirking down at him.

"Ralphie!"

The shifty figure ran over to give his friend a hug and smiled. "Nice to see ya, man. But, uh seriously I am busy so…" he tried to walk back a few paces, but Ralph gently twisted his body to face him again.

"I just need a bit of advice, it won't take long. I promise!"

Spamley sighed but nodded. "Alright, for you."

Ralph nodded and quickly gathered out the drug can, placing it on Spamley's desk.

"Jumping holy…" Spamley got so flustered he couldn't even finish. "Ralph! Where in sam hill did you get that?!"

"You're in a hurry so I'll make it a brief. A kid dropped it and I need to know where she would've gotten it."

The advert sighed, rubbing his head in tiny circles as if to nurse a headache. "Dark Web, no doubt."

"Yeah, but where in there?"

"Look, Ralph, I might know a few seedy people down there, but that doesn't mean I deal in… those," he said, looking at the can like it was an ugly tumor. "No. You're talkin' to the wrong guy, sorry," he stated, waving his arms to wash himself of the very idea.

Ralph groaned. "Well, do you know anyone. Anyone at all? W- what about your buddy that gave me that stupid virus?"

"Really? After going through all that crap, you wanna go back to him?"

"If it means saving this kid from a life of… of that!" he declared, pointing at the can accusingly. "Then, yes. I'd do anything."

"Look, I feel for ya and that kid, but messing around down there… no good will come of it. It was nice seeing ya again, though," he exclaimed then tipped his hat toward him, motioning for the door.

Ralph shook his head and wanted to say something else, but he knew that Spamley was just trying to stay safe. He couldn't blame him. "Yeah, nice seeing ya," Ralph muttered and quickly left.

 _Great, no leads and Spamley wasn't any help,_ Ralph thought as he left his website. He was seriously considering going down there, just to see if he could find any clues, but he didn't enjoy the idea of going down there blind.

"Arrrg!" Ralph screamed, smashing his impressively sized fists on a random bench, destroying it in one blow. "Think, Ralph. Who else can I ask…" the man trailed off, looking down.

Ralph couldn't believe what he was seeing. He was so shocked hearing such a familiar voice screaming at other characters that his mind went completely and utterly blank. There, standing in the middle of the internet road was none other than Vanellope, but judging by her tattered clothes and rude screaming, he could tell it was far from _his_ von Schweetz.

Glancing around in panic, he tried to lean in so he could hear what she was saying. The girl was standing nearly two stories below him, weaving through various game characters who were traveling to and from random online servers.

"Out of my way, shit head! Move!"

Ralph already felt like washing both his ears and her mouth out with soap, but he kept focus. Squinting his eyes, he found her stop just into the portal of a strange sounding game: _Fallout_. The Vanellope clone dug into a tattered old backpack and brought out a strange looking mechanical device which she firmly latched onto her arm. He could barely see what it was, but from his vantage point, he could at least see the thing started to glow a dim green.

Satisfied, the girl nodded then ran into the gateway, leading into the strange game known as Fallout.

"Drugs, cussing and now game jumping? Sheesh, what won't this kid do?" Ralph asked himself as he casually walked over to the entryway of the mysterious game. "Fallout… I know I've heard of that game from somewhere…" he trailed off, trying to recall anyone who would have mentioned it. After a minute of this, he shook his head, realizing that he was just wasting time. A quick trek downstairs and he was standing just before the gateway.

"Alright, Ralph, you can do this. It's just another game! A, uh… a very spooky looking game," he noted, glancing at his surroundings. Just like how Slaughter Race and various other games had decorations on the outside of their buildings which represented them, so too did Fallout. A massive gear shaped doorway with a broken off door laid on the side. Ralph glanced at it and the only thing that truly came out his mind was a vault door, though this one was clearly for decoration as it was dented in several places and very much not functioning as an actual door.

He grunted and tried to find anything he could recognize, but all he saw were guns, monster statues covered in blood and lots of alien looking artifacts the likes of which his old game back in Litwak's arcade had never been privy to.

"Got a feeling I'm not gonna like it in there," Ralph muttered. He took a deep breath and sighed. "C'mon, get it together. That kid could be in trouble. You can do this…"

Even as he said it and started to walk through the massive vault portal, he still couldn't fully convince himself that what he was doing was really the right way to go about it.

* * *

Vanellope groaned, ignoring the stench of bloodied dead bodies and decomposing creature parts. Her nose wrinkled in disgust.

"I hate this stupid place," she muttered.

Glancing around, she spotted a run down old train station filled with crafting stations, vending machines, discarded suitcases and all manner of post-apocalyptic themed items and objects. She glanced down at her Pip-Boy and checked around the map a few times, her finger lightly tracing on the green screen, swiping from left to right.

"Almost there. Better stop by here for some stuff."

Inside, the environment was a big stark contrast from the run down and destroyed buildings outside. While it was far from clean and certainly smelled quite dirty, the place held no ravenous creatures ready to tear her apart limb from limb, or unseemingly sights. Just a run down looking train station depot with a single robot character ready to serve her.

"Hey, _Whitey_ , how's life treatin' ya?"

While the actual in-game name of the strangely painted robot was actually Whitespring Station Vendor, to Vanellope it would always be Whitey. The robot in question had a peculiar design, akin to something someone might see in a nineteen fifties style science fiction film about killer robots on the loose. All of the chrome flair and curved metal style molding certainly fit with that style, but then again, so did everything in Fallout right down to her wrist-mounted computer, The Pip-Boy. To fit with the game's often comedic take on dark tones, the tall metal-clad machine on legs was painted to look like a stereotypical butler, complete with a brown suit and twirling mustache. The sight always made her smile.

"Greetings, c- chi- child," the robot replied, glitching through his speech patterns.

 _Granted, he is from the earlier version of this freaky game_ , she thought with an inward grimace. He wasn't bad to talk to, far from it, but back then the silly developers thought people wanted fewer characters to talk to and thus the whole place was filled with robots. Things had changed since then, but they kept a few around as a memento to the designer's original vision.

"H- how may I- I- I- I-"

She groaned and kicking him in the side of the head and then proceeded to slap him a few times with her tiny wrists. "Snap out of it!"

The machine glitched, beeped and moaned for a solid ten seconds before correcting itself. "Sorry, Van," he said, using a nickname for the kid. "Been a long day," it muttered in its monotone computerized voice.

"You and me both," she agreed while rummaging in a tattered old backpack. "Usual payment?"

The machine tilted its head and nodded.

While the currency of choice for the universe of Fallout was something far more themed to the overall tone of the game. Bottle Caps fit the theme for the universe since they were impossible to counterfeit in a world devoid of civilization. No working factories meant no new production for the strange currency, which made them perfect for a place which no longer valued paper money. The concept was too bizarre for the young child to wrap her head around, but she didn't often need to think about it.

However, what game characters actually traded with was something far more valuable, something players never even knew about; not that any of them _actually_ knew their favorite playable characters had lives outside their game. To them, it was all a fiction, a fantasy. Something that sickened Vanellope, but it was just another one of those things that she had accepted.

"Five code stripes. Cut and ready to use!" she exclaimed, presenting her payment proudly. If Whitey had human eyes they would no doubt be bulging out of its sockets, but instead, he merely gasped as he examined them. They sparkled with a clean shine, the inner layer coated in a virtual copper. Vanellope's trade was the most valuable thing, to the right character.

"Functional, clean and ready to be spliced into anyone's code. And I mean… _anyone_!"

"Yes, yes, child. What do you require for trade?"

"Hmm. What do ya got?" she questioned, licking her tiny lips several times. She could practically taste her prize.

The strange robot looked around, making sure no players were near. Confirming this, he motioned for her to come around his counter, something not even users were privy to. Behind the counter held everything the game had and then some. Chems, weapons, cheat buffs, armor, junk, rare quest items and anything else players would literally kill for. But Vanellope's eyes were locked square on the chems cabinet.

"Buffout, Stimpacks, Sugar Bombs?! Oh…" she could feel herself practically drooling, but she had done enough of that earlier. "Nuka Cola… candied Mentats. Oh… oh! Yes! Yes Yes!" she cheered, jumping and skipping around, she even glitched a few times though that caused her to stop in her tracks. Ow, ow, ow…" she moaned, watching red corrupted code wash over her body. It stung so badly she was forced to hold back tears.

 _C'mon, Van, you're a big girl. It's just pain… horrible pain._

"Are you alright, Van?"

"Yeah, yeah. So how much for each?"

"Hmm… " If the robot could smile, he no doubt would have.

A few moments later, Van was skipping on her way out and her bag filled to the brim with various Fallout chems, treats, food, and sodas. She waved to Whitey and sprawled back into the wastes.

"Alright, Rose, hope you're ready for a visit," she said while cracking a fresh Nuka Cola. "My boss needs so- something from ya," she muttered, her teeth chattering while her body glitched over yet again. She moaned while sipping away at her favorite drink.

She walked away from the old train station, taking in the wastes one step at a time. The place was nothing like her old home, but in her eyes, it was the only real home she had.

"Home? What a joke," she muttered, thinking about times which had gone by long ago.

* * *

" _Taffyta," Vanellope started, pinching the bridge of her nose. "We've been in this store for, like… I dunno, forever! Are we finished yet?"_

 _The girl in question fluffed out her hair, looking it all over in the store's mirror for imperfections. She stood tall and proud as she examined all the new hair accessories that she was about to purchase; the collection of them making her vanilla colored hair shine._

" _You can't rush perfection, Van. This party is gonna be the biggest thing ever held in the arcade to date! I must look… sublime!_

 _Van rolled her eyes, sinking her hands into her jacket pockets._

" _How about you? What will you wear?"_

 _The princess of Sugar Rush groaned. "What else? What's "expected" of a princess. Fancy dress, gumball braids in my hair and…" she stopped and made a fake gagging noise. "And makeup."_

 _Taffyta said nothing for a moment while she repositioned the little candies over her hair. "Oh? And why is it expected? Who says you hafta wear that stuff?"_

 _She scoffed. "Sour Bill for one."_

" _Bill? What's he gonna do to stop ya? Not to be mean, Vanney, but he's, like, half your size," she said with a giggle._

" _Hmm, good point. But it's better to keep up appearances with the other games. Ugh, I hate parties," she said. The mint themed girl took a seat on the floor and rested her chin in her hands with a disappointed sigh._

 _Suddenly she felt a mild pressure under her chin as Taffyta tilted her head up. "Look at me. Do I look good enough for a party?"_

 _Vanellope gave a slight smile and a thumbs up. "Yeah, Taffyta. You look amazing."_

 _Van was surprised to find her hand cupped as Taffyta yanked her up. 'Excellent. Now let's find you something that really says you!"_

" _What? I already told you-"_

" _Oh, who cares some stuffy sour candy thinks you have to wear. Let's have some fun!"_

 _The raven-haired girl hesitated but gave her a shy smile. "O- okay!"_

 _They both jumped in the air, hands held with happy and warm smiles. Everything was going to be perfect._

* * *

Van downed her soda and let out a loud belch before tossing the glass bottle over her head. It shattered on impact and she casually walked off. "That party… I gotta stop thinking about it." Her hands shook, feeling a familiar itch creep up her spine. It urged her to keep going, to get the job done so could scratch it. "Just gotta keep going."

" _C'mon, Vanellope, let's go have a race! Last one there's a black licorice vine!"_

Vanellope shook her head and groaned. "Just keep going."

" _I won! Ha! Told ya those new upgrades would work out. In your face, Vanny!"_

"Keep going…" she muttered while her hands glitched again and again. She started to breathe erratically.

" _Wanna share a shake in one of the new games, Princess Vanellope?"_

" _Let's throw a party!"_

" _Oh, my lemon drops! We unlocked some new tracks, c'mon princess! Let's race!"_

Van had stopped walking already. She clutched her heart as more and more memories resurfaced. Happy memories, sad ones or just random thoughts of her days back in Sugar Rush. Her body shook with fear, her mind trying to block it all out.

" _Stay sweet!"_

" _No one can stop… The Swizz!"_

" _I'm really glad you're my friend, Vanellope. I hope things never change."_

"Shut up! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! **SHUT UP**!" She screamed, not caring if any NPCs or bad guy characters or anyone else heard her. The girl pounded her forehead with her tiny fists over and over. Each hit causing a massive and very painful glitch to overtake her mind. Each hit helping her forget. "J- just stop. They're gone," she said while taking deep breaths.

The itch returned, but with no way to scratch it all the raven-haired girl could do was continue onwards. Occasionally checking her pipboy and readjusting course.

" _They're gone…"_

* * *

Ralph blanched at the sight before him. While _Slaughter Race_ was certainly no _Sugar Rush_ in terms of its atmosphere and overall aesthetic. _Fallout_ was just depressing to look at. Destroyed buildings, dead trees, skeletons, and overall brown and bleak aesthetics made the wrecker stare in bewilderment. "How can the users even play this kind of game?"

 _And how can that kid even stand it here? She just gets spookier and spookier…_

Ralph surveyed his surroundings. Looking behind him, he spotted a familiar looking vault door only this time it wasn't destroyed and seemed very much in use. Adorned on the center were the numbers 76, though the significance of that was lost on him.

"Why you want a vault door pushed into a mountain?" he asked, shaking his head in confusion. "Whatever, just gotta find that kid and we can get out of here," he muttered and took a few steps forward. Then he froze.

He had stepped in something and went to wipe it off, but when he noticed the blood-red colored pile of organs oozing off his feet, he squealed like a little girl and practically fainted. "Get it off! Get it off! Oh my _Sega_ , this is so wrong! When did video games become so disgusting?!"

Eventually, he calmed down and was able to wipe off most of the vial liquids on some grass. "Man, gotta watch where you step in this place."

The man wiped his face with one of his huge hands and sighed. "Okay, Ralph, get a grip. Man up. You've faced Turbo and a massive volcano, one stupid violent game isn't gonna kill ya."

He picked a random direction and followed it, tiptoeing down a set of ominous looking stairs which lead away from the strange vault. "Just gotta find someone to talk to and-"

"Hello there! Welcome to the Wastelan- Oh Dear, you're not from around here, are you?" asked the voice which spoke in a very rich stereotypical British accent.

Ralph blanched at the sight of a three-eyed floating robot with what looked like a buzzsaw for one hand and an injection needle for the other. He could hardly make heads or tails of the strange machine.

Scratching his head, the wrecker shrugged. "Uh, yeah, what gave it away?"

The mechanical eyes on the machine focused a few times. "Well, given the comedic style of the developers, it wouldn't shock me if they put you in here as some sort of joke update to excite the player base. But likely it's the fact that you seem a tad… cartoony?"

"I'll take that as a compliment. Name's Ralph, by the way," Ralph said, hesitantly stretching his hand out.

The robot used one of its free hands and shook. "Cogsworth, a pleasure to make your acquaintance. But, what are you doing here? This isn't the friendliest game to be poking around in, Ralph."

"Yeah," he said, looking out on the horizon to some ruined buildings. "I got that. I don't plan on sticking around for too long, but I'm looking for someone. A kid, about yay high," he explained, pushing his hand down to his knees.

"A child… ah, you mean Van."

"Van, like… Vanellope?"

"Call her _that_ and I doubt you'll wake up to see the morning," he warned. " _Van_ is usually out around the _Savage Divide_ , toward the center of the map. If I'm not mistaken. But, my good sir, why would you want to seek _her_ out, of all things?"

"It's a long story, now the Dividey place is where? Which direction?"

"Erm, well it's sort of down that way," he muttered, pointing to the right. "But, my good sir, your code is not part of this game and one wrong move and it could be game over!"

Ralph shrugged. "Well, neither is her code! Uh, at least I don't think?"

"Van's? Not that I'm aware of, granted that girl can pack a punch so I wouldn't worry. But if you're seriously planning on going after _her_ , you'll need more than just your enormous fists, not everything is as polite as I am in this wasteland of a game."

* * *

After checking her PipBoy for perhaps the millionth time, she finally stood just minutes away from _The Top of the World_ , a massive strange looking building in the shape of a stereotypical UFO often seen in old looking comic books. It stood tall, towering over everything around it.

"Okay, Rose, I'm coming for ya," she warned.

The girl walked on ahead, barely paying attention to the massive group of super mutants, a faction of highly irradiated humans with super strength, a bad temper and ugly looking green skin. At least, that was how players saw them as.

"Hey gang, how life treatin' ya?" she asked, waving to a small group of them.

The super mutants gave a friendly wave. "Can't complain," one said while scratching its bare chest.

"I killed two players today! Heh, I'm on a roll, Van!"

The spunky girl giggled. "Oh really? Nice. Anyway, I'm off to see Rose. How she been?"

The mutant character shrugged. "Same ol'. But, why are ya visiting her now?"

Van averted her eyes and shrugged. "What? I can't visit a friend? M- maybe I'm bored," she said and then her body glitched in several places.

The mutant character scowled. "We know when you're lying, Van. So, the truth. If you please?"

"Got some trading to do, and that's all you need to know barf breath," she chided and started to skip off.

The mutant grunted, watching her leave. "You better watch where you step! There are mines about, girl!"

Van sighed and nodded to him, taking her journey at a slower pace. "Just gotta get in and out," she told herself, her body glitching yet again. "In and out…"

 _Make sure she takes the cube. You gotta make her believe it was a trade, not that you just gave the thing up willingly. Rose is a smart one, she'll sense a trap from a mile away._

As she neared the building, a strange looking elevator with a curved door came into her view. She hopped into the thing and had to jump as high as she could just to reach one of the buttons. The door slid shut and up she went. The place was sure to be full with raiders, dead bodies and all manner of other things which made her skin crawl. Though in the older days of the game, no one was around except a lonely robot known as Rose.

The door slid open revealing to her the character in question, standing and looking down at her with a smug smile. Rose was no longer just a robot, but a fully clothed human character with a bad attitude. The woman popped a piece of gum in her mouth and started chewing rather casually.

"Van? My boys spotted ya here from a mile away. What brings you to my neck of the woods?" she asked and swung an automatic assault rifle over her shoulders, making Vanellope gulp in fear.

 _Be polite, be calm. Just stay calm…_

"Well?"

"T- trading!" she blurted out without thinking. Rose tilted her head to the side while the girl dug in through her backpack. "Uh, here to trade, if that's cool?"

 _Keep calm, slow movements._

Rose chewed on her lip then glanced up and waved to someone off in the distance. Van glanced just behind her and saw one of Rose's raider friends walk over. Without any hesitation at all, he grabbed her backpack and jammed it off of her small body.

"Hey!" Vanellope yelped, glitching in several places. "Watch it, will ya!"

Ignoring her, he rummaged around inside, making a quick inventory in his head at what she had. Satisfied, he threw the bag back in Vanellope's face then walked over to whisper something in Rose's ear.

"Mhm, doesn't seem like you got a whole lot there, _little one_ ," she teased. "Sorry you wasted the dangerous trek, but I'll have to pass," she said rather dismissively. She waved her hand and the other raiders walked off as she started to join them.

"Now wait just a gosh darn minute!" Van exclaimed. She stomped her feet a few times and practically snared at the woman. "I was _not_ trading anything from my bag, you s-t-stupid heads!" Her body glitched several times, causing her to wince in pain.

Still walking away, Rose brushed her hair out of her eyes and glanced back. "Well, these s-t-stupid heads are gonna prepare for another player ambush. I suggest you run and hide before you get hurt, you little rugrat."

The ex racer's face turned beet red, her body glitching in several places. The pain and embarrassment at that point were beyond excruciating, but she held in her tears.

 _Don't come back unless you complete your job._

"Fine! I guess I'll take this data miner cube and go elsewhere!"

That did it. The raiders stopped, Rose stopped and Vanellope stopped breathing as her body glitched in several spots. The cube had been lifted from her pocket and was held high above her head like a prize.

Rose began giggling. In an instant, several of her goons were on Van like a fly to honey. Several of them cocking guns and not being shy at where they aimed them. "Ah, ah, ah!" Van exclaimed and held the tiny cub just in front of her mouth, looking ready to consume the thing.

Rose snapped her fingers, causing several raiders to lower their guns, though two kept them trained on Van's face.

"M- make one wrong move, a- an- and I sw- swear I'll swallow!"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, little lady. Swallow and we'll rip it out of you, code by code. Give it up now and we _may_ let ya leave. We hold all the cards."

 _Crazy bitch_ ," Van thought. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves. _Slow and steady. Sell it right_.

"You'd really kill just for this? Y- you that desperate?"

"Desperation can be an ugly thing. Would _moy_ be that desperate? No, I think I'd do it just for the fun of it, you little brat. Now fork it over and no one has to get hurt… maybe."

The others chuckled loudly at that, making Van wince. Rose rolled her eyes and leaped forward and carefully placed her fingers on the tiny cube, tightened her grip and yanked it into her possession.

 _Perfect_ ," Van thought and had to resist the urge to smile. _Now I just have to make it seem like I didn't want her to take it and I'm golden…_

Rose twirled the thing in her hand while Vanellope stood off to the side, glaring at one of the raiders who had a gun pointed at her head. However, her eyes quickly focused on the cube. She could just barely make out a tiny little spark shoot out from it, a spark which was dark red and traveled up Rose's arm, not that she had noticed. Vanellope's face twitched into a slight smile.

 _Time to put on a show…_

"Y- you can't just take that from me!"

"Can and did. Boys? Kick her out, our business is complete."

 _Put on a show… put on a show…_ It was important to keep up appearances. Rose was smart, perhaps the most intelligent character that Vanellope knew, which surprised her when she hadn't sensed a trap yet. A trap which had gone off the second she touched the cube.

A raider thug picked Vanellope up by the scruff of her jacket and threw her over his back with a loud thud.

"Toss her in the elevator and lock the thing. Give it player access only," Rose commanded.

"I- I'll kill you! Y- you're a stupid bitch! G-give it back!" the girl screamed, kicking and flailing her feet in a vain attempt to escape.

As it turned out, she had gone a _bit_ far with the insults. Rose snapped her fingers, making the raider stop in his tracks. The look that Rose gave Van made her blood run cold as the raider neared her.

The young one blinked up at her while Rose cracked her knuckles.

"Uh, y- you can ju- just keep the s- stupid cube. We're even, kay?" she quickly squeaked out while her body glitched again. The other raiders thought it was a riot.

"Even huh?" Rose asked and Van could only think to nod as she cowered in fear.

The raider struck her fist into the young racer's face, hard. Everyone heard a sickening crack while blood exploded in all directions. The resounding force flung Vanellope back several feet and out of the raider's hands.

Van felt dizzy. Pain erupted from her body in every direction, but none more so than her face. She reached out a trembling hand to stop the blood flow, but all it did was add to the pain.

Rose shook her head then grabbed the kid by the scruff of her jacket while the child whimpered in fear. The battle-hardened woman spit in the girl's face then flung her back into the elevator shaft. Somewhere through the pain, she felt her favorite jacket had torn in several places.

"Now, we're even, kid. Let that be a lesson to ya!"

A few minutes later, Vanellope found herself back on the bottom floor with the super mutant gang. Her jacket ripped and her face and nose bleeding quite profoundly. She sniffled and cried loudly, not caring who saw. Eventually, the mutant leader offered a hand and slowly picked her up before grabbing her backpack.

"You really rub Rose the wrong way, you know that right?"

Vanellope had both of her hands pressed firmly on her nose to quell the bleeding. "Shud up," she lisped, though her voice sounded quite weazy as if her nose was actually broken.

The mutant rolled his eyes and handed the girl a towel. "While she may have gone a bit too far on this one, maybe a new change of attitude would prevent any further… complications like these."

Feeling quite weak, all she could do was nod and accept the gift. The girl forced the towel into her face and panted in and out, trying to calm down. _Mission successful. Just calm down. Deep breathes…_

No players had shown up in quite some time, so the mutant waved her over to a nearby bunker. "Might I suggest a stimpack?"

Vanellope shuddered. While she couldn't deny that stimpacks were quite useful, that didn't make a sharp needle any less pleasant; especially one aimed directly at her face! Sniffling some, she shook her head and backed away a few feet.

The mutant sighed. "Well, just take it in case you change your mind, Van."

"F- fwanks," she muttered and pocketed the thing before slowly walking away.

"Where are you off to now?"

"Sh- sheep," she lisped. _Sleep sounds good_.

* * *

 **Anyone wishing to discuss WiR fics, story ideas or just to chat about writing, I have created a new Discord channel which can be found here:** **discordDOTgg/fkE5SnT (just replace the DOT with a .)**


	4. Chapter Three: A Stink Brain and a Pixie

_I would like to thank everyone for the kind comments and replies and for reading my tale. It's only been a little while since I've been back in this "fading" fandom and I've already made some new friends and read so many wonderful stories. Hopefully, we can all keep WiR going strong. If anyone is interested, I've started a small Discord server which is Text Only for WiR authors, PM me for an invite!_

* * *

"Isn't this a bit much? I get this place is dangerous and all, but… I don't think I've ever worn this much armor since my time in Hero's Duty."

"Oh please. If anything this isn't enough, but the standard Raider Power Armor will have to do. You're just lucky the game auto re-sizes or this would never fit. You're quite the heavy fellow, aren't ya?"

"I'll take that as a compliment," Ralph replied. He looked around his body and couldn't help but snort. The suit he had been outfitted in made the standard issue armor from Hero's Duty look like a children's play outfit.

He could feel actual metal creeping along his spine. The thing creaked and groaned with every movement, yet somehow it seemed light as a feather. Something about power fusion cells and how it all worked. Looking in a cracked mirror, Ralph could barely make out his face among the scuba diving like gear of twisted metal and rusted old steel. Every inch of his skin was covered in some kind of spiked armor and certainly made him seem like a formidable foe to contest with.

"Stop flexing, you look ridiculous. Now then, you'll want to steer clear of any players or they'll try to kill you on sight. You're likely the biggest thing in this entire map, aside from a Mirelurk Queen, maybe, or a Deathclaw," the robot pointed out.

"I'll be careful. Listen, I really appreciate the help and all."

The robot almost seemed to smile, but without a mouth, it was difficult to tell. "It was my pleasure, Mr. Ralph. I will not allow anyone to trudge into that bizarre place undefended, especially if they won't regenerate upon death!"

"Like Van?" he asked in a rather deadpan tone.

The machine scoffed. "You truly think that little menace would listen to anything I have to say on the matter? Please."

While Ralph did not know Van very well, he did have a comparison to make. Vanellope was not unreasonable, but she often did as she pleased and if Van was anything like her, it did make sense.

"Right. Okay," he said and rubbed his freakishly metal hands together. "That way?" he questioned, pointing roughly north.

"That's a good as start as any. Van will be deep within the Wasteland by now, so you best get going."

"Okay! It's wrecking time!" he suddenly exclaimed and felt around his back for his new weapon, a massive sledgehammer with a peculiar looking exhaust port on the end.

"Riveting. Ahem, I do apologize for your lack of equipment. I was only able to secure that one Supersledge."

"This should be fine. I better get out there before it gets dark, right?"

"Glad you remembered your training, now get going, Mr. Wrecker and good luck."

With fierce determination, the wrecker nodded and gave one last wave before moving on. Despite everything the friendly robot had warned him of, he didn't feel nervous. Compared to most things in the world, he was _huge_ and it also helped that his power armor seemed near impervious to damage. As far as he could tell, anyway.

 _He said something about repairing it… watch out for Scorched?_ he thought, looking around. He waved his hands and shrugged. "Cross that bridge when we come to it, wreckin' boy."

Glancing around, he saw a large sprawling forest which was broken up by a small stream off in the distance. Figuring it was a good a path as any, he shrugged and started following a tiny dirt road. He only took a few steps when he looked down and noticed something small moving toward him. Squinting his eyes through his new helmet, he found a series of tiny looking robots all walking on four elongated metal looking claws. Not unlike a spider. Their bodies were shaped like long cylinders with a painted on red star where their glowing eyes laid. They stopped and inspected Ralph with curiosity.

"Why aren't you all the cutest looking-"

 **BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!**

"Woah there! Ah!" he screamed, dodging laser after laser and tiptoeing around them before he came to his senses. "Fine! You wanna play it that way!" he screamed and quickly grabbed his trusty new hammer.

A sickening crunch reverberating off the hammer while the wrecker quite literally wiped the floor with every last one. Each little robot being blown to pieces from a single blow. After a single minute of this, the floor was littered with broken robot parts which sparkled and glitched in various places.

Ralph was panting, trying to catch his breath. "Phew, not so bad but I really need to work out. But, I mean, c'mon? Robot spiders?" he scoffed and quickly put his weapon away. "That the best _Fallout_ has to offer?! This will be a breeze."

" _Bloooooooooodddddd…._ "

An ominous sounding voice slurred their words just behind Ralph while he was busy checking out more of the scenery. "Yeah, yeah… blood. Got it," he replied rather distracted.

" _Kill_!"

"Wait… what?!"

Whipping around, he spotted six of the ugliest looking creatures he had ever witnessed in any game, period. They stood tall and resembled ordinary zombies one might find in your average arcade shoot 'em up style game, only an infected looking puss of jagged crystals were sprouting from random spots on their bodies. Blood stained their clothing, random wounds and even their mouths and eyes which were quite soulless, unlike his buddy back in Bad-Anon. Just like the robot had warned him, they were _not_ intelligent not unlike a Psy Bug from _Hero's Duty_.

The creatures leaped at him but he was ready. He reached for his hammer and struck one dead on over its head which nearly came off with a sickening crunch. Blood splattered in all directions making the wrecker thankful that he was wearing the hulking suit. Smirking, he smacked the thing away where it lay dead.

"Ha! Not so tough are ya!" he screamed, pointing his _Super Sledge_ at the rest, but they were undeterred.

The rest came charging at him and actually got some hits on. Ralph buckled under the pressure and even the protection from his new power armor wasn't enough to ward them all off. He moaned as stumbled backward while the remaining scorched continued their assault hacking and slashing him with random tools or weapons that they had found.

"Alright, maybe kind of tough," Ralph muttered and quickly smacked a few away. Every blow from his hammer was rather successful, however, the entire scene and his new armor were quickly soaked in zombie blood, making him gag. "Just glad the kid's not here to see this…" he muttered as he struck the killing blow on the final scorched creature.

Ralph started to pant for air again, doing his best to wipe all the blood from his hammer and his armor. "Gross… so gross."

Sighing, he turned around and his eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. "Woah!"

" _ **ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**_!"

Standing just mere feet away was a creature the likes of which Ralph had never seen in his thirty plus years of living in an arcade. Forget how ugly the scorched looked, this _thing_ was beyond horrifying. A large beast which seemed to even tower over him, power armor and all, stood on two terrifying webbed feet with nasty looking claws. Reptilian in nature, the beast looked something like a rabbit raptor dinosaur crossbreed between a dragon with spikes on its back for good measure.

And it was currently looking directly at Ralph.

"Ah… heh, nice looking… Dragon thing."

The thing leaped forward and tackled the wrecker's body to the ground with a massive crunch. With the raw energy that could rival the entire Sugar Rush racer lineup, it started scratching his armor in various places and even went in for a bite, chewing out several wires and pieces of mesh metal which protected his face.

 _That's it, it's wrecking time!_ he thought and ignoring the pain, he shoved the thing off his body and readied his weapon. He took an offensive stance as the thing considered him for a long moment.

"Man, you're one ugly beast. You could give Turbo a run for his money."

" _ **Argggggggggggggggh**_!"

Happy for an opening, Ralph leaped onto his feet and swung his sledge in a swinging arc. The backend of the tool activated. A small exhaust port on the other end began to spew out an explosion of fire and smoke, aiding the speed of his swing. The beast yelped and swung backward from the critical strike. Blood and guts spewed in every direction, but the monster was far from finished.

The beast attempted to retaliate, but Ralph's raw strength allowed him to easily hold it back with more blows from his now trusty hammer. _Aside from the blood, this is almost kind of fun. No wonder Felix likes these things!_ he thought, not really sure if it was the adrenaline speaking or he was simply losing himself in the moment. That's when the worst happened. The beast was almost beaten. It was a bloody mess of broken bones and cracked skin, clearly showing damage. It roared at him yet again and then something on the strange creature began to change.

Like a complete metamorphosis, the beast's body started to shift and change. Its skin mended itself almost entirely while the bland looking brown reptilian texture began to glow a bright sickening green. The spikes along its spine began to grow, erecting longer and longer while its claws did the same. Perhaps the most alarming thing was its health bar, something that even Ralph was quite familiar with. The whole thing completely regenerated as if he'd done absolutely zero damage to it.

"That's not fair!" he screamed but the beast simply screamed back, almost smiling down on him.

Grunting in annoyance, he swung at the mutated beast but the thing actually dodged backward. He missed entirely and the reinvigorated energy of the beast gave it ample strength to retaliate and very quickly. It quickly knocked Ralph to the ground and then snarled in his face.

"Radioactive breath! Gross!"

But the glowing monstrosity just kept biting and chewing away at the mesh wall of his helmet while pounding and scratching at the remains of his armor. Ralph tried to get it off but to no avail.

"So strong… need air…" he said as he panted and wheezed. The thing was so large at that point that the pressure was crushing him inside his own suit.

A few more strikes by the beast and suddenly the world started to spin for Ralph. _Is this how it all ends? Killed by a radioactive dinosaur?!"_

"I got ya, big guy!"

Through the haze and all the noise, Ralph blinked and looked around. He knew that high pitched whiny little voice anywhere. He wasn't sure whether to smile, however, or be angry.

"K- k- kid…"

" _ **KAZZZZZZZSHOOORT**_!"

Suddenly Ralph's body was overcome by a glitchy mess of three-dimensional glowing pixels. One second he was pinned down by the beast and in another, he was thirty feet away behind a giant tree. He buckled down from the weight of his armor while his heads up display complained about low power. Panting and wheezing, he looked around while on his knees.

"K- kid?"

"Knock, knock. _Who's there?_ Not a dead Ralph, that's who!"

Glancing upward, he spotted Vanellope in all her sugar glory giving him a rather shy smile as she rested on his head.

Meanwhile, the beast was still looking around for its prey, sniffing around and stomping about in the opposite direction.

Ralph watched the thing slowly leave, though it remained in their vision. "If that thing wasn't here, I would be yelling at you, kid…" he growled.

Vanellope shyly played with her fingers and shrugged. "I get it, you're mad, but if I hadn't done that you might have died," she pointed out.

Ralph closed his eyes and took a very deep breath to calm down. It was a fair point. _But she's still in the wrong_!

Slowly, incredibly slowly, Ralph stood up as his vision righted itself. He had no doubt that his power armor had certainly seen better days, but he ignored it for now.

"Vanellope, we told you to stay in your game! Yo- you don't even… arggggg!" he screamed. The big wrecker felt so angry, but he resisted the oh so powerful urge of punching a nearby tree to pieces.

The little one scowled and crossed her arms. "We go as a team, Ralph. Plain and simple."

"You could _die_ here, pipsqueak. Never regenerate and you'll be gone forever. Do you understand?!"

Vanellope buckled some from the sheer volume of his voice, but she wasn't just about to leave, he could tell. She sniffed some and stood up as tall as her little body would allow. "You could die here too."

Ralph pointed his freakishly long finger at her as if to say, that's a warning. He tried to respond, to think of a real intelligent rebuttal, but she was right. What he was doing was incredibly dangerous. There was no way to add their code to Fallout; the only reason it worked back in Slaughter Race was that Vanellope was a true racer; it was literally in her code.

It took him all of two minutes to calm down, all the while Vanellope continued to nervously chew on the licorice strings of her jacket.

"Kid, do you even know why I'm doing this? Are you just here because of me?"

Vanellope's eyes widened in surprise. Her eyes darting around a little bit as she seemed to search for an answer. When she spoke the licorice string fell. "If… if she was one of my friends back in Sugar Rush and they were in this kind of trouble, then I'd want to help them out."

Ralph blanched at the answer. "I thought you didn't like those little brats?"

She looked down and away, mumbling out a response that was just barely audible.

"What?"

"I said… well…" He waited very patiently for her to gather her thoughts. She stuttered a few times and finally sighed. "I shouldn't have left so quickly. I love Slaughter Race. It's fun and edgy and it challenges me in all the right ways!"

He nodded with a quirked eyebrow. "But?"

She slumped and sighed, her body glitching a bit. "I- I shouldn't have just left so quickly without t- talking with everybody first," she stuttered nervously. She was blushing and he could tell that she was really trying to be sincere.

He nodded a bit. "Hmm, how did the other racers take it when you told them?"

Her face seemed to turn green, looking like she was trying not to remember a painful memory. Ralph hadn't been there when she left to tell everyone and to gather her belongings.

"..."

"That bad, huh?"

The girl closed her eyes, listening to the ambient sounds and gentle music in Fallout's background. "Is it so bad to want something else? I'd do anything for them, but I can't just go back, Ralph. I can't."

Ralph considered her for a moment before speaking again. "Is that something you're telling yourself to feel better?"

Vanellope didn't have an immediate answer. The wrecker folded his arms and waited. She closed her eyes and a single tear leaked out. "I really hurt them, didn't I? I'm j- just a big dummy," she stuttered on the brink of crying.

Ralph's expression softened and he tilted her head up rather gently. "Hey, now, you're not the one who was stupid enough to sick a virus on their best friend. I'd say that makes you smarter than me."

She sniffled and wiped her nose on her jacket sleeve. "That's true, heh, you big lug," she said rather cheekily.

He smiled and nodded. "I dunno if those sugar racers will ever forgive ya, but it can't hurt to apologize, right?"

She toyed with her jacket a little bit while trying not to look too distressed. "I guess not…"

"Then maybe you should go back and-"

"No."

"Look I-"

"Look I-"

Ralph groaned. "Oh, Sega not this again," Vanellope repeated his words in a terrible impersonation of the big man while tilting her head from side to side. He pinched the bridge of his nose all the while.

"Look!" he said, practically screaming at her. She buttoned her lip and took on a more serious face. "If you're just here to keep me safe then you can go do me a solid and go home. If you want to help save Van then-"

"Van?"

"Uh, yeah, it's what Cogsworth called her. Big floating robot guy… thing." She nodded. "If you really want to help save Van and you _need_ to be honest with me about that. Then, fine, you can…" he trailed off and took a deep shuddering breath before continuing. "You can stay," he finally said.

She didn't cheer or smile or jump up and down with glee, as expected of her. Instead, she simply crossed her arms. "I want to help her, Ralph. Maybe we don't know, uh, Van, but if she were any one of my friends back in Sugar Rush… no matter how mad they are at me," she added with a blush. "Well I already said it, I'd do anything for them."

He hesitated for a moment while she went back to nervously chewing on her red licorice strings. At long last, he had come to a decision as he stood up. He pointed at her and then up to his shoulder.

Vanellope smirked and glitched up there, standing tall. "You mean I can come?!"

"You do everything I say when I say it. Got it?!"

The racer gave a comical salute and nodded. "Yes sir, Mr stinky breath, sir!"

He groaned. _Shank is going to kill me. If Fallout doesn't get us killed first_ , he thought.

"Right, well that stupid glowing thing is gone at least," he said and picked up his hammer.

The pixie racer nodded. "That thing looked pretty dang cool. How come they can't be running around Slaughter Race?" she asked as if it were the most natural thing in the world to ask.

"...Vanellope?"

"Yessss?"

"You frighten me."

She giggled and off they went. The only noise would be the stomping of his rusty power armor broken up by a nearby stream of fresh looking water.

Vanellope leaned against his head on one hand while looking around. "What kind of game is this, anyway?"

"Cogsworth told me it's something called a Survival Role Playing Game. Players, erm, find it fun to try and survive in a super harsh post-apocalyptic environment."

The young racer sniffed the air a few times and started to fan it away. "Something smells funky," she muttered.

Ralph blinked and glanced at the water, realization slowly donning on him. "Oh, right, Cogsworth claimed most water in this game is contaminated with nuclear waste."

"COOL!"

Without warning, she tried to jump right in only for Ralph to catch her by the hem of her jacket. As he held the girl by the scruff of her neck, she twirled around in mid-air and shyly looked up at Ralph, who was glaring at her.

"S- sorry," she stuttered nervously.

He sighed and quickly put her back into position. "It's fine, just please don't go jumping into radioactive waste."

"Roger," she said, though her voice was still quite cheeky. As if she didn't understand the full danger of the situation at all.

In the end, Ralph decided to cross the stream by jumping from rock to rock. Vanellope tried to point out she could easily glitch them across, but he didn't care. One mistake and they'd end up in the contaminated water and he wasn't exactly sure what would happen then.

Glancing around, the duo spotted something moving in the distance. It took them several minutes before they realized that they were players. One decked out in peculiar clothing, a dress suit that didn't seem to have a scratch on it, and his partner didn't look too different from the average thug one might find in Slaughter Racer.

"This place is whacky, Ralph. That suit's just gonna get all dirty," she pointed out with a roll of her eyes.

"We best steer clear of them, Cogsworth said players aren't the most trusting bunch…"

Vanellope gulped and slowly realized what he was getting at. "How do we find Van, anyway?" she whispered to him. The last thing they needed was for the other players to notice them talking.

He shrugged. "Cogsworth said she'd be somewhere out in the Savage Divide. Center of this place… but he also told me she could be anywhere. We'll have to ask around."

"Sounds pretty savage."

Ralph's features bristled slightly as they watched the players disappear from sight. "Kid? This whole game is savage."

"Aw, c'mon you old son of a gun! Like anything can stop you!" she exclaimed and started comically punching the air, dancing around his shoulder blades and making silly fighting noises.

Ralph looked down at his hammer with a contemplating stare. While he knew Vanellope was just being silly, he couldn't help but sort of agree. _I guess I didn't kill that thing, but I was close!_

Smiling, they turned onto the road where the players had walked off to and followed it at a slow pace. "Maybe you're right, kid. I am pretty tough, eh?"

She giggled and settled back onto his shoulder. "The toughest I know, stink brain!"

He raised his massive fist and hovered it next to her head. "Top shelf."

"Top shelf!" she exclaimed excitedly and pounded it as hard as she could.

Just then the ground beneath their very feet started to rumble at an alarming rate. They glanced around in shock while Ralph's flight or fight instincts kicked into overdrive. "Brace yourself, kid, I think we have company!"

"No, Ralph, look!"

Vanellope's tiny arm outstretched as she pointed off in the distance. A bright, blinding flash of light seemed to explode over the sky as the rumbling increased. They could watch in horror. A massive explosion of fire overtook a mountain off in the distance, brighter and larger than anything they had ever witnessed before. The thing was shaped in a peculiar way, almost like a massive mushroom with a matching cloud to boot. The bright light slowly vanished into the air and eventually, the entire thing faded into dust.

"Holy mother of monkey milk! What the hay was that, big guy?!" Vanellope screamed. She seemed to be on the verge of hyperventilating. The ground had ceased rupturing beneath them, but the looming threat of danger never seemed to leave.

"I… I don't know."

They shared an uneasy glance before continuing onward, making sure to steer clear of that mountain in particular. Suddenly, Ralph didn't feel so tough.

* * *

As they traveled, groups upon groups of players seemed to pour out over to the explosion site. Just why they would want to be _there_ of all places perplexed the two to no end. But it also meant most of the game was relatively free of other players, which suited them just fine.

"Are we there yet?"

Ralph grunted as the little racer shuffled over to his right side before settling on his shoulder, _again_.

"No."

She moaned and slowly crawled over to his back while clutching onto his neck for support. "How about now?"

The wrecker chewed on the inside of his cheeks before slowly replying. "No… Vanellope, we're not there yet, okay?"

Suddenly she appeared in his vision, hanging upside down over his head. "Do you even know where we're going?"

Looking around, the road seemed to split off in several directions, with one part of it going up toward an observatory of some kind. "Uh…" he mumbled and turned around where he spotted a large wooden structure that only seemed partially destroyed, which was a plus in Fallout, Ralph noticed. It was parallel to a ruined set of train tracks.

"I think Cogsworth said something about traders in these train stations. Maybe we can ask if they've seen her."

She nodded and clambered back to his other shoulder. "Good a place as any."

He clinked and clanked over to it at a rather slow pace. They hadn't been jumped by any players or insane monsters, yet, but that was putting him on edge. Danger could be around any corner.

They peaked inside a broken window and saw no players in sight, but they did find a strange looking woman behind a counter. Shrugging, he made his way inside with Vanellope having to duck her head under the doorway.

"Welcome, travelers wel- who the _hell_ are you two supposed to be?"

Vanellope gasped upon hearing such language, her form glitching in a few places while Ralph snarled. Standing behind the counter was a tall woman decked out in raider gear and what appeared to be war makeup. Her one working eye blinked at them while the other was hidden behind a strange looking patch which blinked on and off with a tiny light. She quirked a brow at them and snorted.

"Well?"

"Um, look we're obviously not from this game-"

"No shit, Sherlock!"

Again Vanellope's body pixelated in several areas. She didn't know whether to laugh at the use of such foul language or to back up in fear. The woman was clearly on edge.

"Hey, that is no reason to use that kind of language in front of a kid!" Ralph argued, pointing his freakishly large finger in her direction.

The lady glanced up at Vanellope and gasped. "Van…"

"Van?" Vanellope said, glancing over at Ralph in confusion. "No, look I'm not Van," she stated and glitched off of Ralph to the floor. She tiptoed over to the lady and offered her hand. "The name's Vanellope von Schweetz! Pleasure to meet you!"

The raider backed up in bewilderment, staring at Vanellope like she just grew a second head.

"And I'm Ralph, uh, Wreck-It Ralph. Maybe you haven't really heard of me?"

The woman shook her head very slowly while Vanellope kept her hand out awkwardly. "Hey, my hand's getting tired here. You're supposed to shake it and go "Pleasure to meet you, Vanellope, my name is… " she exclaimed while waving her free hand for her to go on.

Instead, the woman knelt down and physically grabbed Vanellope's face, searching for something. It took her a second, but she slowly nodded.

"You really aren't Van, are you?"

"Uh, no. Sorry, no."

"Good," she stated with a snort. "Dunno how you two got here, but as long as you don't bring that little menace in my store, then we're cool. Name's Marle, by the way," she said and finally shook Vanellope's hand.

"Nice to meet ya, Marle!" Vanellope said happily.

Marle smirked. "Likewise… I think. Now, what can I do for you two? I take it you're not after Stimpaks or assault rifles?"

Vanellope tried to say something in reply, but Ralph was quicker. "Actually, no, we were wondering if you knew where Van went? It's important that we find her."

Marle tilted her head in confusion. "Why? She steal stuff from ya? If so, it's probably long gone."

"Steal? No! We just need to talk to her and it's pretty important."

Marle laughed and went back to sorting her wares. "That girl ain't much of a talker. Last time she was around, she tried to steal some of my wares. When I caught her, let's just say we didn't do much talkin'," she said rather casually. Her hand was gripped around a rather large knife which she promptly slammed down onto her trading table, hard.

The little racer gulped and backed up in fear.

"Relax, girl. I ain't gonna hurt ya. It's not impossible to have more than one character from the same game and I can tell you're nothing like her."

The racer tilted her head in confusion. "Nothing? Seriously?"

"Oh you might sound the same, may even look it, but there are a few things that are just off."

"Like?"

"You stick out like a sore thumb, kid," she replied rather bluntly. "Van though? Van belongs in a savage game like Fallout. She's damaged goods. And if I were you two, I'd turn around and go back to your little games, if you know what's good for ya."

Ralph was starting to hate her with a passion. "Look, _Marle_ , do you know where she could be or not?"

"No, now if you're not here to buy anything I suggest you leave."

Ralph stomped his foot and resisted the very powerful urge to wreck something. "You either tell me where-"

"Ralph! Can it!" Vanellope screamed, surprising both of them. "Just wait outside and I'll handle this, k?"

"B- but, what are-"

Vanellope started playfully shoving him outside, kicking her feet in vain to try and move the giant lug in an even bigger piece of Power Armor. It didn't work.

"Get! C'mon!" she said and eventually, he started moving. It took him a solid minute while standing outside to realize he had left Vanellope alone with a dangerous looking raider.

 _Stupid!_ he thought and was about to run inside when suddenly she appeared smiling smugly. Her tiny little hands showed him a piece of paper which he unfurled.

"See, we're here," she exclaimed while pointing to a red circle that was drawn around a building. "Van is probably here," she said and seemed to point to a strange looking building over on the southern side of the map. Ralph squinted his eyes and noted the place was called _The_ _Whitesprings Resort_.

She snapped her fingers and giggled. "Easy!"

"How did you… but…" he glanced back at the raider inside who didn't so much as dignify him any response.

"It's called Charisma, you big lug. You should try it sometime!"

* * *

 _Sorry but there wasn't any Van in this chapter, but as you can clearly see, she's coming soon!_

* * *

So, here's a fun little entry that I came up while writing this chapter. To those unfamiliar with the Fallout series, your character's overall skills and success rate with them are dictated by their SPECIAL stat. This stands for **S** trength, **P** erception, **E** ndurance, **C** harisma, **I** ntelligence, **A** gility and **L** uck! I'm not 100% sure if they will ever show up in the story, just yet, but I figured it would be neat to share Ralph's and Vanellope's SPECIAL rank's and how the game of Fallout sees them as when compared to the rest of the world. Van is not fully decided on yet.

While the game they are in is not set in the universe of Fallout 1 or 2, the allocation of their SPECIAL stats will be. That means you start out with 40 points or a minimum of 1 each with 33 to allocate based on personal preference. Or in Ralph and Vanellope's case, how they are. You cannot, however, go above the number 10 for any of those stats unless you have the GIFTED perk which will raise all of them by 1.

* * *

 _Ralph_

 **Strength** : 10 (This one is fairly obvious. He's a big hulking guy with a heart of gold and even larger fists to boot.)

 **Perception** : 3 (Sorry Ralph, but given how you handled Vanellope on your first meeting, I'd say you're pretty low on this end. You fell for Double-striped vines how many times?!)

 **Endurance** : 8 (There's no point in sugar coating this, our little Wrecker can take a beating. He fought off Turbo who fused with a Psybug, fell from an insanely high height above the volcano without sustaining damage and he can be thrown off a building on a daily basis and still be fine!)

 **Charisma** : 2 (I don't think Ralph is the best at charming his way to a victory. Sure, he knows the right things to say when Vanellope is down or sad, but I just can't see him being a very good liar or charmer.)

 **Intelligence** : 7 (Maybe not the smartest cookie on the block, but I wouldn't consider him dumb by a long shot. Sure, he got tricked by Turbo, but if Turbo were in this story, I'd give that little villain's charisma a 9 at the very least. GRANTED, because my story takes place after WiR2, you also have to take my 7 for him with a small grain of salt; I just can't see a kind, caring and intelligent individual like Ralph buying a virus and sicking it on an innocent game just to get Vanellope back. That's what dumb people do… or lazy screenwriters.)

 **Agility:** 2 (Is our big hulking friend Agile? Eh, not really. He's not super slow, but being so big means he often moves slower than others of smaller stature, simple physics.)

 **Luc** k: 8 (Ralph survived in an arcade for how many years? It's up for debate since the movie doesn't technically tell us, but if you buy all the fan theories then at that point in their universe, we're talking 30+ years. Not only that, but somehow their arcade scene is thriving, in a post-2000 year? Sorry, you don't get that far in life without a lot of luck.)

* * *

 _Vanellope von Schweetz_

 **Strength** : 3 (She's a very tiny child with a very tiny body. She couldn't even lift her go-kart up when it crashed into a wall in her volcano hideout. Sorry, girl, you're not the strongest racer on the block.)

 **Perception** : 8 (Vanellope would excel at this. She jumped to the candy cane vines with minimal effort, like she was playing a freakin' 3D platformer by heart. At the end of the first film, we see her glitch teleport around all the Psybugs without missing a beat. Yes, I would argue that she is incredibly perceptive of her surroundings.)

 **Endurance** : 3 (Being a young child and all, it makes sense that she can bounce back from injuries with ease, but she's still a young avatar and was designed for go-kart racing, not fighting off endless hordes of mutants, zombies and killer robots.)

 **Charisma** : 8 (She can be polite when she needs to be, funny when it calls for it and quite charming and bashful in the most adorable of manners. She convinced Ralph to help her with baking a kart and it didn't take them long to become good friends. I'd also argue that, if need be, she would be a good liar.)

 **Intelligence** : 5 (While not the dumbest cookie on the block, Vanellope is still a young child and programmed as such. This doesn't mean she can't get smarter or more mature, but she's still an immature young girl and thus has no real bookish inclination which would point to high intelligence.)

 **Agility** : 9 (Have you seen this girl move?! All you have to do is watch her in almost any scene and you'll see just how agile she can be when she wants to.)

 **Luck** : 4 (She has a best friend named Ralph and a little family to boot now. But is she the luckiest little program in the whole universe? No, not really. Her game was taken from her for how long? She couldn't leave for help because she was turned into a glitch and the other racers, the people who were supposed to be her friends, had turned on her. The only lucky thing was Ralph showing up in her life and that took how many years? Sorry, you are one unlucky little sprite.)


	5. Chapter Four: Addiction

Van resisted the urge to scratch her bloodied face. Occasionally she would try by rubbing the towel all around but stopped with the onslaught of raw pain. Wincing a bit, she leaned her head down to check her PipBoy. Where the head icon was located, under status, it showed a giant frowny face clearly labeled on the _Vault Boy_ avatar icon, indicating that she had been badly hurt. The girl took a few steps onto the road and stumbled to maintain her balance. Her vision even doubled several times.

Her body glitched in various places and she let out a rather muffled scream behind the soaked towel. More and more the prospect of using a Stimpak was becoming rather enticing. Her little fingers reached around in her backpack and started to feel around. Eventually, she brushed alongside some glass vials with razor-sharp needles on one end.

"C- c'mof, j- jus a n-n- neefle," she lisped, still wheezing from the pain. Her fingers trembled, her body shook and the vivid memories of using such horribly painful medicine flashed through her mind. They could heal you on the brink of death, for sure, but they were rather unpleasant to use. A very vivid memory of her using one, just one, flashed through her mind over and over. Wretched glitching code and excruciating pain; Van had never screamed so much in all of her life.

Finally, she came to a decision and put the needles away. _Will just make me pass out…_ she thought, remembering the results on the rare occasions where they were necessary. It was just too dangerous to risk it out in the open.

The ex-racer took a few deep breathes through her mouth and already felt exhausted, but she had to carry on.

"S- s- sheep…" she mumbled and started walking again.

" _Attention Citizens. NUCLEAR STRIKE IMMINENT! Please exit the area at your earliest convenience! Thank you for your cooperation._ " An ominous sounding voice announced from her PipBoy as sirens all around her started to blaze from every which direction.

Van groaned in annoyance.

"G- great… s-s- dumb pw- pwayers…" she lisped.

Moaning again, she quickly checked the map in the game and was thankful to find the nuke far away from her. _Good, won't have to waste any Stealth Boys…_ she thought. Players were always attracted to the dumb nuclear sites. That suited her just fine. Though, as usual, she wasn't taking any chances.

Clutched tightly in her free hand was the strange device itself, a Stealth Boy. A strange looking rectangular device stored neatly inside a leather pouch. They were fairly simple to use, only requiring the press of a button, but in her opinion, they were exceedingly rare. _Makes ya invisible, ah-doy they're rare!_ she thought. Thankfully it wasn't needed for the time, but she kept it at the ready.

Walking had started to become a huge chore, the exhaustion of it all getting to her. Desperately, she checked the map on her pipboy and groaned in pain, even whimpering. She was close to her home, that much was certain, but the journey to reach it required a bit of a trek uphill. As she walked, her mind couldn't help but wander freely, to a much better time from so long ago.

" _Okay maggots! Listen up! The racers over from_ Hydro Thunder _think they got what it takes to go toe to toe with_ Sugar Rush's _finest! They think they got us scared, that we're all nothing but big diaper babies ready to cry home to our mommies!"_

 _The other racers looked on in awe as their princess marched back and forth in front of them, pacing as she spoke._

" _Are we gonna let them just think that? So they can walk all over us?!"_

 _A few of the racers mumbled something while the rest nervously twitched their fingers._

" _I can't hear you!"_

 _But instead of a unified response, one of the racers simply stepped forward while speaking rather casually. "No mam?" Taffyta said uncertainly._

" _You got that right! Aww, c'mon, guys, you're supposed to band together and all go_ "Mam, no mam! Ready to fight to the death, mam!" _Or something cool like that! What is this?!"_

 _Vanellope pointed over toward Jubileena who was nervously clutching the back of her head. "Uh, it's just we don't think it's quite that serious. They just challenged us to a race, Vanellope. That's all."_

 _The sucker that Vanellope had been suckling was quickly bit in two. "That's all? JUST A RACE?!"_

" _W- well, yeah," she stuttered nervously._

" _What are we? All of you, what are we?!"_

 _More mumbled responses while Taffyta gave their leader an understanding smile. With a wink, she spoke, "Racers, we're racers."_

 _Smirking, Vanellope pointed over at her. "That's right! We're racers at our core! And when we're challenged we don't just play a little game, we race! We race with all of our hearts and minds as one. Because this isn't just some silly race, team. Sugar Rush Racers have to show this arcade that we mean business and we're not just gonna take second place lying down! Now, are you all with me?!"_

 _Taffyta giggled and jumped into the air while animating her signature pose. "Mam, yes mam!"_

 _The others gave out some half-hearted replies of confirmation, some smiling and others shrugging._

 _Vanellope giggled. "Good enough!" she exclaimed and broke out into a fit of giggles, much to their confusion. "Aw, c'mon, gang. I'm just teasing. Let's go out there and win, the Sugar Rush way!"_

Van almost smiled, almost. All she had left were memories, bitter and sweet, but sometimes more the latter rather than the former. Sometimes.

She was close to her target, very close. She kept pushing her body, panting for air and trying to stay upright. The world kept spinning while pain continued to course around her nose over and over. After a few more steps she suddenly tripped, falling over onto her side. The towel dropped and fresh blood pooled around her injury.

"S- sh- sh- so s- s- she- sheepy…" she mumbled. She was vaguely aware of her hands searching for the bloodied towel as her mind continued to swim. It took her a full minute, but she had the object back though she lacked the full strength to stop the bleeding.

Whimpering and trying not to cry too hard, she started to crawl uphill at a rather slow pace. It took her roughly five minutes before something came into view, something other than the road.

Her head tilted up and she spotted a familiar guard building with a very peculiar looking guard, another robot.

"H- h- hey, S- S- Sp- Sparky," she said with great difficulty.

The same robot design from the trader was Sparky's design, only lacking a fake mustache or any fancy trimmings. The humanoid machine tilted its head down and seemed to gasp.

"Van, you require immediate medical attention."

"N-n- nah… f-f- fwink I- I'll jus… lie… h- here n she- sheep," she stuttered and before she knew it, her head had slumped onto the pavement below while the world blacked out.

* * *

Pain. That was the first thing Van felt upon waking. Raw, unbridled pain. And then she felt a very cold and incredibly prickly feeling around the base of her nose. A cold feeling liquid shot straight through her face and that's when she started to scream. Her body began to glitch in the most excruciatingly painful ways all over. She wanted to run and hide, to make a break for it and run. To open her blasted eyes and see what was going on, but all she did was continue to scream and cry in pain as the needle continued to pour the unknown concoction into her system.

Van was vaguely aware of someone screaming for her to do something, but words and phrases blended together and she couldn't hear past her own voice. Sweat poured off her body at unfathomable rates. At that point, she was well beyond trying not to cry and scream in agony and she didn't care who heard.

 _Just make it stop!_ she thought, over and over the same thing going through her mind.

The agony didn't stop, even when the cold prickly feeling went away. She shook and trembled and cried and glitched for what felt like an eternity. Until, eventually, her vision seemed to return while she could finally calm down enough to hear something. A blurry figure came into view and hesitantly patted her back.

"Sleep… sleep, child. Just sleep."

The voice was familiar, but all Van could think to do was nod her head in response. Sleep sounded good.

She awoke sometime later. The pain had ceased and she couldn't feel any wetness on her face any longer.

"Hmm…" she mumbled. "What happen?"

Slowly, very slowly, her eyes fluttered open and she glanced around. There was no one around and no familiar voices from earlier. Quickly, she felt around her face and didn't seem to find any injuries. She sat up slightly and tried to piece together what she knew.

"I was walking… here," she stated confidently. Looking around, she confirmed she was in her 'home', but didn't bother to take in the surroundings by much more than an actual glance. "And I… I…" she trailed off and closed her eyes. For some odd reason, her memory seemed very fuzzy.

Her PipBoy, however, had the answer. Checking her status it was revealed she was suffering from an over addiction of stimpaks of the super variety. She blinked as her mind tried to process this and then it hit her.

"What the hell! I don't use those stupid things! I would never."

She groaned and tried to think back, but it was like swimming through molasses and her mind just didn't seem to be firing on all cylinders. Figuring she was getting nowhere, the girl shook her head and glanced around.

"Least my head isn't spinning anymore…"

Blinking, her surroundings slowly came into focus and there she able to smile. If only just. The strangely built underground bunker was her little slice of post-apocalyptic heaven. While it was technically not allowed to build your own structures in certain areas of the game (least of all underground), Van had found a way and, so far, there weren't any negative consequences.

Taking a very deep breath, she slowly stood up and tried to walk only to fall flat on her face in utter exhaustion. The entire world started to spin and her whole form felt dizzy. Her stomach wrenched in a few places and she moaned in pain.

"Stay sweet, Van!"

Her body froze, her mind screeched to a halt and a creeping chill ran up the back of her spine. Then she chuckled a bit and rolled over onto her side. "Just hearing things," she mumbled.

"Hearing what? I'm the only one here, you big silly!"

Van screamed and backed up, scrambling on the floor before hitting the back of her head on something hard. The world around her continued to spin while pain glitched over her form several times. She could see something which resembled Taffyta Muttonfudge, smiling at her in a sickening way. She saw it, but she didn't believe it.

She started hyperventilating though because the strange taffy girl wasn't vanishing. On the verge of tears, Van started pounding her fists over her head. Not caring how much force she used. _Not real. She's not real!_

"Hello! You in there, princess?!"

Taffyta was screaming in her face. Nevermind the impossibility of it all, the fact that her best friend was yelling at her made the situation so much worse. She had a sickening glare etched on her face the likes of which Van had never seen.

 _GO away!_ she thought. Oddly enough, the strange vision started to chuckle at this.

"Go? Go where? Or did ya forget you lame brain princess! Our game is gone! We have nowhere to go!"

"Y- y- you're n- n-"

"What was that?! Speak up you pathetic excuse for a driver!"

Her eyes slowly closed, hoping that was the last of the strange hallucination. _Not real… you're not real. You died years ago and you're never coming back. This isn't real._

She felt an immense pressure squeeze her head from both sides as her head was raised up by what she presumed to be Taffyta's hands.

"Look at me! Look! Don't ignore **me** you, evil little witch! **You** ignored us!" she screamed and actually physically shoved Van's head back onto the floor, hard.

Just how she was able to do this was beyond her understanding as Van seemed terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought.

" **You** failed us!" the illusion screamed and bashed the back of her skull again.

Van was kicked backward into a locker compartment, the door to it swung open while her head radiated pain the likes of which she had never felt.

" **You** let us die!"

"N- no… I didn't… I," she mumbled while the irate racer stomped over toward her.

Panicking, her glitching hand reached into the locker, haphazardly tossing things aside. "Where is it!"

"Knock knock, princess!" Taffyta screamed. When Van looked back she was on the verge of tears with what she saw.

The once pristine looking racer who would ordinarily be decked out in pink colored candy cane style tights and a sparkling jacket was instead the picture perfect mascot of a raider denizen. Clothes torn in various places, blast marks on her face with bleeding, puss filled wounds. A maddening, angry looking smile while her once beautiful looking baby blue eyes burned with crimson fire and blood.

Taffyta grabbed for Van's leg but screamed when a massive green blast of energy was shot directly into Taffyta's face. The ex-princesses hand trembled while doing her best to clutch onto her Laser Rifle. She fired and then fired again, each time the air was punctured with a massive energy blast which shone in a sickly green color.

Taffyta clutched her face as it started to disintegrate before Van's eyes.

" **No! You can't do this, Van! You can't! You left us to die! You must d-** "

Whatever the monster was about to say was quickly silenced by the final killing blow of Van's rifle. The sickeningly realistic image of her long-dead friend glitched in several places before slowly melting into a warm looking pile of radioactive goo.

Van dropped the rifle in shock. She started to cry which soon turned to full on tears. She was vaguely aware of her PIpBoy attempting to warn her about something, but she ignored it and continued to scream and whine and sniffle.

 _She's gone… she's gone!_

She pounded the back of her head into the dented locker over and over. Just wanting to end it all as the world continued to spin in all directions.

"S- s- she's gone."

The hallucinating girl laid there for ten minutes, just breathing and panting for air. She no longer felt like sleeping or doing much of anything. But time had a funny way of going against one's wishes.

Suddenly a radio which hung on one of her walls buzzed to life. Van turned to it and shut her eyes. To say that she was trembling in fear was a massive understatement.

"...Van? Are you in, little one?"

Lacking the strength to yell, she slowly got onto her hands and knees and very carefully crawled over to the voice.

"Y- yes. I'm here," she said and couldn't help but sniffle a few times.

"...Are you alright? You sound stressed."

"I- I just. Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay," she lied and laid back against the wall.

"You know you're a terrible liar, young one. What happened?"

A warm, comforting feeling radiated throughout her mind. For the first time in a long while, she smiled. "I- it's a long story. The mission's done though. It's over."

"I am delighted to hear of your success. Though, I take it Rose didn't treat you very kindly?"

"..."

"Right, my apologies. Fairly obvious. If it seems prudent for you to share, I want to hear about your mission and how you got to be in this state. You should also note that a care package is on its way, your payment."

Reluctantly, she glanced over to the internet based radio and smiled. The man on the other end did not do the same, but his face was covered by an ominous looking black mask so she assumed he had. A bright red flashing light hovered above her head in the shape of a flat looking three dimension envelope.

Sniffling some, she reached out and touched the thing. It exploded open, dumping out a tiny looking crate with a strange looking coded seal on the front. Her prize, or her payment, as it were.

"T- thanks, boss," she replied and slowly opened it up. Her eyes sparkled with delight. It held four massive canisters of a strange looking liquid which made her mouth water. Along with several other goodies, including a bundle of money that she could use throughout the internet.

"No, thank you, Van. You've earned your payment."

Van glanced down at her PipBoy, the status tab continued to warn her of the rather unpleasant side effects that were flooding her code.

"It would appear that something has gone wrong with your inner code, young one. Care to explain?"

She scowled and shut the crate. "I don't remember. I…" she sighed and wiped away her tears before delving into a full-on explanation.

Her boss was quiet for a good while before speaking. "That is very difficult to believe, Van. You're saying a coded apparition harmed you, brought on by Stimpak overdose?"

"I know what I felt." She tilted the camera on the radio over to the pile of goo. "I… she-"

" _She_ is no more, Van. You must come to terms with this," he stated. She closed her eyes and started to whimper. "It is very unlikely what you state is-"

"I know what I saw! You don't wanna believe me! Fine!" she screamed and huffed.

"Van, I never said _I_ didn't believe you. Only that it is hard to believe. Still, if Fallout is messing with your coding that much, you must be very careful. Do you have a way to cure the addiction?"

Grumbling, she slowly stood up, though it took her a minute to blink away the dizziness. She started rummaging through one of her lockers, before coming upon a strange looking breathalyzer like item.

"I got one Addictol left, boss."

"Use it now. I'll compensate you later. We cannot risk such strange coding with you, of all people."

"...I'm not a virus!" She screamed, her body defying her words by glitching in several places.

"Perish the thought, but if you recall, I have never once claimed that you were. Despite what some of my… less than savory clients may think of you, my dear."

She continued to pant and breath before slowly calming down. "...You think I'm n- normal?" she asked, twirling the drug cure in her hands.

"You already know my belief on the matter. That has not changed. But, for what it's worth, I think you are extraordinary for such a young child. Now, please, cure that awful disease."

She didn't have to be told twice. Her mouth opened and she popped the apparatus inside before pressing the button and breathing in as deep as she could. There didn't appear to be much change or even much of an immediate effect, but her PipBoy did, at least, stop complaining about mental ailments on her part.

"Good," he said and she suddenly felt a nice euphoric feeling shoot into her mind. Like a fluffy and warm blanket that protected everything. It felt almost as nice as her favorite canisters, almost.

"Now then, I have business to attend to. Are you sure you will be alright if left to your own devices?"

The same pleasant feeling continued to flow through her system. She gave a shy nod and a little smile.

"Good," he repeated and the same feeling washed over again. She swayed from side to side and rested her head against the cold metal of her locker. "Stay safe, Van," her boss said and the radio slowly quieted down.

Time flowed much slower for her and, for a while, she was content to simply lay on the ground, staring off into space. But the strange pleasant feelings slowly waned away and Van was left feeling cold and alone.

Ignoring the puddle, she hopped over to her bed, bringing the crate with her. Her little hands brushed over the box like it was an old friend.

Her eyes drifted over to something that hung out of the side of another locker. It was a pair of white sparkling gloves.

" _Uh, well, it's certainly… different," Taffyta said._

 _The duo were standing in one of Vanellope's many rooms in the castle, though she often used this particular one when she needed to sleep. It wasn't exactly a bedroom, but it was close enough._

 _The princess was standing in a pair of mint themed tights with candy cane stripes going along the edge, along with a plain looking mint green jacket. An ordinary looking jacket. To top the outfit off, and upon insistence by Taffyta, she had a peanut butter ruffle style skirt so she would look "presentable"._

 _She twirled around a few times and shrugged. "Doesn't look that bad, right?"_

" _Um… no. It's just, erm, different. I guess I'm not used to seeing you like this," she replied. "Where'd you find that thing, anyway?"_

 _She shrugged. "Back of my closet. Probably part of the game or somethin'."_

 _Taffyta tapped her fingers on her dress a few times while walking around Vanellope and examining her in various places. She noted that Van's hair hung loosely at her sides. "I think I know what's wrong," she stated._

" _Hmm?"_

 _A few moments later and her hair was tied into a neat bun using a red licorice style rope. Taffyta combed her hair out a few times and soon they were ready to hit the power socket!_

" _Perfect," Taffyta said._

"Taffyta…" she mumbled while curling up on her mattress. Just the name brought warm, pleasant feelings bubbling up through the dark crevices of her mind. But to see her in such an angry state, even if it had just been something Fallout had conjured up, was still quite disturbing.

Her hands were trembling by the time she reached out for the first drug canister. The itch returned while she tried to fight back the tears. She couldn't stop thinking about the past and about what she lost.

"Taffy, what happened to all of you?"

 _She is no more, Van…_

She refused to believe it, even to this day, but what other explanation could there be? What was more likely? Her best friend up and ran away, along with her other friends. Or that they all perished through the dark recesses of the internet, never to be heard from again.

"S- stop thinking about it," she mumbled while gently pounding her head over and over with her fists. her eyes glanced over to the canister, her mouth begging her to give in. "Stop…"

All it would take was one swig to forget. To be free of the burden of her dark past. Just one swig.

Fresh tears spilled onto her pillow. This was it. She had to use one. It was either drug up and go to happy town for the night, or spend the rest of her night in utter misery.

" _I'm so glad you're my best friend!"_

Whimpering in utter defeat, her tiny hands slid the canister open, the fumes from inside wafted up toward her nose.

"I'm sorry, Taffyta. I need this."

She was about to go through with it when a massive explosion outside interrupted her thoughts. It was so loud that her underground bunker actually shook. The ex-racer glanced down at her fizzling drink and then back to the door. A few more blasts from outside and her decision was made.

Mustering up all of her strength, she set the canister aside, stood up and wiped away her tears.

 _Players…_

* * *

Ralph and Vanellope continued onward into the wastes. As they got further away from the game entrance, they noted that things were getting quite a bit darker. A hint that both parties took to mean things were going to be far more dangerous from there on out.

"Uh, you know there's something I didn't think about, kid."

"What's that?"

"Shank, what's she gonna do when she finds that you're not in bed…"

Vanellope's whole body glitched a few times and she chuckled nervously. "Erm, probably ground me to my room for a month then kill me and when I regenerate, do it all over again. Why do you ask?"

"Uh…" he started and felt something vibrate in his backpack. "N- no reason."

Ralph certainly wasn't gonna pick it up and Vanellope seemed to be cowering in fear, each time it rang. So they waited and waited until the thing went to voicemail. What they heard on the other line was nothing short of frightening.

"VANELLOPE VON SCHWEETZ! IF YOU DO NOT COME BACK HERE THIS INSTANT! I WILL FIND OUT HOW TO PERMANENTLY ALTER YOUR CODE AND YOU'LL BE STUCK IN YOUR PRINCESS DRESS FOR LIFE! AND RALPH, IF SHE'S WITH YOU AND YOU DON'T SEND HER BACK, I WILL FIND **YOU** AND I WILL HURT **YOU**!"

The phone clicked and the message finished.

"...Hey Ralph?"

"What?"

"Sh- she can't actually do that, r- right?" she questioned with a nervous chuckle.

Ralph took a deep breath and then gestured behind her. "You're still welcome to go back, kid. No one would blame ya."

She pouted and glitched back to his shoulder. "I'd blame _me_ if something happened to _you_. Stupid."

The wrecker chuckled and swung his massive Super Sledge over his back, only narrowly missing Vanellope's tiny head.

"Whelp, I guess you're gonna have to risk it, _princess_ ," he said with a snort.

As they walked, Ralph could swear he heard her mumble something about saving the girl being worth it. Though, secretly, Ralph hoped so too.

* * *

 _I would like to thank everyone for the kind comments and replies and for reading my tale. It's only been a little while since I've been back in this "fading" fandom and I've already made some new friends and read so many wonderful stories. Hopefully, we can all keep WiR going strong. If anyone is interested, I've started a small Discord server which is Text Only for WiR authors, PM me for an invite!_


	6. Chapter Five: Everything is Fine

"You know, you'd think a massive complex that was controlled by nothing but killer robot butlers would be easier to find."

Vanellope yawned while learning on the wrecker's head for support. "Don't ask me. Just going by what she said. I don't even know what a butler is."

"It's a… ah, well… you know!"

The racer blinked and shook her head. "Uh, no, I really don't."

"It's kind of like Sour Bill. They dress funny, grow strange looking mustaches and let you order them around."

She nodded. "Oh! Quite the job description! Oh, oh! Maybe we can get a butler for Sour Bill when I go… uh nevermind," she finished with a sigh.

"Hmm, uh-huh? Am I losing you, pixie?"

He waved his hand in front of her face, causing her to shove it away in annoyance.

"Quit it! Just thinking."

"That's-"

"Dangerous, yeah. Thanks," she mumbled.

Ralph chuckled just a bit. "Did ya, um, forget what game you-"

"No, I did not. Thank you," she muttered, seething a bit in anger. Though the girl's pouting face made it very difficult to take her seriously.

"Woah. Didn't mean anything by it."

She nodded rather gloomily and the duo continued their trek. The silence was easily broken up by Ralph's power suit, creaking and groaning the quicker they walked. The wrecker glanced down at his pixie and considered saying something, but decided to ultimately let her be.

"Ralph?"

The power armor screeched to a halt and he glanced down again.

"Yeah, kid?"

"Do you think…" The girl trailed off and searched all around as if looking at people that weren't actually there. "I mean, about Sugar-"

Whatever she was about to say was cut short by a loud explosion that had gone off dangerously close to the duo. Vanellope yelped as Ralph suddenly grabbed the girl and lugged her onto his shoulder.

"Hey! Watch it, grabby hands!"

"Sorry, kid! But that doesn't sound safe and I'm not taking any chances!"

"I can take care of my- woah!"

Vanellope suddenly screamed as Ralph neared a cliff and screeched to a halt. The duo glanced down over and gasped from the sheer height of a broken up bridge they now stood over, but they also couldn't help but glance at the party below them.

Knee deep in blood and combat were a few of the online players of the game, indicated by their strange user tags which floated above their avatar's heads. What exactly they were doing wasn't immediately apparent to the duo, but it soon came clear. They would kill a few random enemies, loot their bodies, and move on.

"Ah, I guess they're grinding," Vanellope commented with a yawn.

"What the heck is that?"

"Eh, lots of players do it in my game. They gain experience and new stuff just by playing longer and longer. Or in this case, uh, killing," she said rather casually. Though Ralph noted that there was a bit of unease in her words.

"Right, well we should wait for them to leave. I think the place is right over that cliff up ahead," Ralph noted.

So the duo sighed and waited and waited. The players continued to do this over and over until finally one of them looked down at their wrist and clicked something. In the blink of an eye, they all vanished into thin air.

"What in the hay was that! They can disappear?!" Vanellope squeaked.

Ralph shrugged his shoulders and sighed. "No clue, but I don't hear anything so I say let's go for it."

"Whatever you say, grabby hands."

* * *

Van always took precautions when going out. _Well… usually._ There was the odd occasion when she threw all caution to the wind, especially on her days off. Just thinking about strolling through the internet, high as a kite while guzzling some Nuka Colas. Thinking about it alone made her feel so giddy. Though there was always the other part of her that prompted her to cower in fear because she knew what drugs were doing to her.

Nervously, she could sense the tips of her fingers edging along the outline of her lips. She could feel it: a primal, childish feeling to give in and just stick her thumb in so she could have something… _anything_ to calm her nerves.

Then, she pulled away and scowled at her fingers. Without thinking, she punched the nearby locker and yelped in shock.

"Stupid habit! Stupid thumb!" she screamed, with each succession of the word stupid, she punched her chest in raw, unbridled anger. "Stupid nerves! Stupid game! Stupid players! Stupid everything!"

It was an incredibly stupid thing to do and with each punch, a particularly painful glitch ravaged her little body. She could even feel blood.

She paused mid punch and looked at her now bruised fist and whimpered. _Should have just given in… so stupid!_

Then, without warning, all of the outside noise just stopped. Thinking quickly, she donned her pipboy and looked around the map. While it wasn't always particularly accurate, it usually displayed where players were. She saw nothing. At least, nothing in her area anymore.

Then the hatred and adrenaline that had been flooding her body ceased. The raw and painful glitches all around her body slowly stopped and she sighed. She could feel a few bruises all over her chest as her skin and muscles screamed in pain.

"Stupid me…" she whispered.

"Little one, sorry to disturb you after such a stressful job. I was wondering if you wanted another? Perhaps something to keep your mind off such a dark place."

"Hmm?" Van scratched her head and mulled it over in her mind.

"Uh, as long as it doesn't involve getting punched in the face…" _Or hitting myself._

There was a long and eerie silence that was swiftly followed by his voice again. "She did… ahem. Forgive me then and no this is a simple delivery job. Some occupants in a connected arcade had ordered some parcels from a few websites. If you're willing to accept, then the quest contract can be found in your stash box. The expiration date is forty-eight hours. It's up to you."

"Oh, uh, thanks, boss. I'll think about it," Van mumbled and took a seat on her bed.

"Splendid, but for now, communication terminated."

With that, the radio went silent. Van mulled over her thoughts and quickly realized something, she didn't really have any. Sure, she was looking forward to her 'treats' and just chilling while she got bored, yet again, but somehow she just didn't feel like that anymore. With a heavy sigh, she reached into a locker and brought out a jar that was labeled _Healing Salve_.

She made quick work of the stuff all over her chest and hands as a mind-numbing pleasure radiated through her little body.

With that done and no players detected, Van slowly lowered herself into her cozy bed and glanced up at the ceiling. Content to simply stare at the blinking and glowing designs of her bunker with dozens upon dozens of fake animated computers blinking away while creating just enough noise to almost lull her to sleep.

Then she glanced over at her miniaturized stash box; a simple-looking ornate box with a customized theme to it not found in the game's files. Black licorice etching. It always made her smile and reminded her of good times long past.

 _I never thanked him for this…_ she thought with a depressive sigh. She tried to think back to when they first met and her memories felt awfully fuzzy. Things like that often bothered her deep down, but it was so easy to just dismiss her emotions with a nice drug. Trouble was, she couldn't even remember the first time she took the damn things.

 _Whatever, this is my life_ , she thought depressively.

Her fingers gently pushed alongside her stash box and with a heavy sigh, she opened it. "Delivery job, huh? Fine. Better than sitting here in the dark."

She picked up the quest contract disc and read the contents to herself. It seemed simple enough. Apparently someone had ordered some digital parts and wanted it delivered to their game. With a shrug, she donned her bag and grabbed a few things for the road before leaving the safety of her underground vault.

* * *

When the duo finally arrived they looked bewildered. Dozens upon dozens of robots laid in shambles. Broken, glitching, or outright destroyed while a few others whirled about their business as if nothing was wrong. The massive golf course landscape meanwhile looked none worse for the wear and for a post-apocalyptic setting, it seemed fairly intact. Even the massive white building in the center didn't look destroyed in the slightest.

Vanellope scoffed. "Uh, is it supposed to look like that?"

"I dunno, that other robot did warn me that Fallout can be a bit… chaotic. I guess we can ask around for her. I mean, I don't see any danger, do you?" Ralph asked.

"Eh, not really. But what do I know, I'm just a dumb kid," she mumbled rather bitterly.

"No one said you were dumb, Vanellope. A kid? Sure. A brat? Of course." She gave him an annoyed stare from that. "But never dumb."

As they walked, Vanellope stayed silent for a while though seemingly deep in thought. "I feel pretty dumb."

"Hey, you're not the one doing drugs. so what's this I hear about being stupid?"

She buttoned her lip and looked away before shrugging. "Um, do you think S- Sugar Rush is doing okay?"

The clanking of his power suit suddenly ceased and he paused. "You really wanna know?" he asked and she gave a hesitant nod. "Honestly, kid, never better!"

Vanellope blinked in utter confusion. _How could that be?!_ "Wh- what do you mean?" she asked rather nervously.

Ralph smirked. "Taffyta and uh what's her name… Crumbelina teamed up to run the place. After that, they made a few changes to the random roster race and fixed up the castle a bit. I guess it made the kids happier which made them race better on the track. It got the players super excited to have a new challenge. Sugar Rush hasn't been that popular in years."

Vanellope gave a pensive nod in reply. "Oh, t- that's good to hear," she replied without much emotion.

"Uh, you okay? Your eye is glitching a bit," Ralph pointed out.

She shook her head and clutched her right eye with her hand to calm it down. "Yeah, uh, I'm fine," she said with a fake smile.

"Uh, you don't seem fine, munchkin butt. What's eatin' ya?"

She shrugged while not meeting his eye and felt content to simply stare off at some of the worker robots, just doing their thing. "I, um, I just didn't think they would… uh."

"They? You mean your friends?" he prodded.

"Friends?" she mumbled. _I don't think they like me that much as a friend. I know Taffyta definitely didn't after I kicked her butt a million times on the track!_

"Hey, look, it's a giant mutant wreaking havoc on the place!" Vanellope suddenly screamed while pointing off into the distance.

Ralph glanced over and, sure enough, there was a massive super mutant doing its best to destroy everything in its path. But since it hadn't noticed them, he simply sighed. "Nice try, pixie head. C'mon, what's bothering you?" he pressed.

She took a quick glance up at him and had to resist the urge not to glitch out of sheer nerve. "What? No- nothing! I'm serious!" she said, though she quickly noted that the tone of her voice shot up an octave higher than she would have liked to. _Good going, idiot_ , she thought with an inward sigh.

She saw the big goof pinch the bridge of his nose which was never a good sign. She was already in enough hot water as it was and tried to stay calm, but something about Sugar Rush was getting to her.

"Look, kid, I can't help ya if you don't talk. You're my friend and friends help each other out. Right?"

"Right!" she said with a comical salute.

"So?"

"Uh, the mutant just smashed a robot's head in," she noted.

"..."

"Vanellope…" he said with a very annoyed tone.

She felt her body glitch a few times and she slumped onto his shoulder. "I don't want to talk about it, okay?"

"Oh yeah? Well, I do, president fart feathers!" he almost yelled while carefully placing her on the ground.

"You're not the boss of me!" she warned. _What the hay is his problem? I said to lay off it!_

"Oh no? How about we give up right now and I walk you back to Shank's place. You're not even supposed to be here and you promised me-"

"I didn- didn't promise squat! I said I'd stay for you… I- I didn't promise," she stuttered very nervously. She could sense some of her emotions spiraling out of control as she felt her nerves get the better of her. Guilt and anguish continued to toy with her as the conversation went on. She was digging herself a bigger hole and couldn't help herself.

"You didn't?" he actually paused at that and for a fleeting moment, Vanellope felt her hopes soar that he'd finally just drop it.

"No. I never made a promise, Ralph. C- can we please just drop this right now? It's not exactly the best time to talk!" she said while pointing to the rampaging super mutant that kept getting closer and closer.

She felt her body glitch again as he seemed to contemplate her like he was examining a strange dish that Gene had cooked. Until, finally, he sighed.

"Aw, I'm sorry, kid. I just want what's best for you."

 _Oh, Ralph…_ she thought. Shaking her head, the racer glitched up to his shoulder and carefully took a seat before patting the side of his head. "I know. I just… I just don't want to think about this right now. How about later?" she offered. She felt stupid for even saying it but honestly didn't think that Ralph was gonna let it go so easily.

"I- oh alright, later. But please don't hold stuff in, pixie princess. It's what… it…" Ralph trailed off and looked away rather shamefully.

"What? It's what…?" she tried and he groaned.

"Okay, look. I'm not saying you're gonna go down that path but-"

"What path? Is it like a race path? Dirt path? What kind of path are we talking about here?"

Ralph took his large fist and slowly brought his fingers down across his face before groaning in exhaustion.

"And why are you always doing that to me? What'd I do? I just wanted to know what you mean!"

"Vanellope," he started which caused her to glitch again. "It's an expression. My point is that part of the reason that I did that incredibly stupid virus thing-"

"Oh, man was that dumb, Ralphy boy. Probably stupider than making that custom track without thinking that through."

His face reddened significantly higher, but she couldn't help herself. "Or dumber than me breaking rank during a live quarter game to drive on it."

"Van-"

"Oh, oh! Or breaking my kart because of Turbo Butt-"

"I get it!" he screamed, causing her body to glitch in a few places yet again. She nervously laughed and quickly buttoned her lip.

"Just please let me finish," he said after a few calming breaths. She quickly nodded and resisted the urge to tell him that his breath had smelled like three-day-old hamburgers. "One of the reasons I did it was because I was stupid and didn't talk to you about my… you know… feelings."

"Ew, Ralph! Stop being a mushy head!"

"Arrg! I know, I'm awful. But, do you get it at least?"

The pixie sighed and slowly nodded. "I think so. Look, if it'll get yer gears out of a grind, I promise to talk to you about it later. Okay?"

She even offered him her little pinkie which he comically tried to wrap around with his own, leading her to giggle. He smiled and nodded.

"Alright, kid. Fine. Let's just go finish this already."

"Right!" she exclaimed and glitched to the top of his head. "Onward, trusty steed. We've got a drugged-out princess to save!"

"Vanellope."

"Yes?"

"Get off my head."

"No."

* * *

Van climbed out of her hideout and quickly shut the hatch door shut. As she did, the girl couldn't help but examine the rusted out shelter with a tiny smile. Sure, she hated Fallout far worse than anything she had ever experienced on the web, but her place had a certain charm to it. And while it wasn't much and certainly wasn't anywhere near as elaborate, fancy or well-furnished as her old castle. Well, it was hers and she was the one that had built it up.

"I mean… boss helped some, but still."

Her code was not compatible with Fallout's server or code. Nothing about the game really screamed her and no matter how many times she tried, the main features of the game remained locked off to her. Sure, she could use weapons and armor and items, but she had nowhere near the same agency as players did. She couldn't even use her pip-boy to fast travel to other locations; always being relegated to walking.

Players could do insane things like build houses and structures all to their liking, but that feature set remained wholly locked off from Van. This meant when it came to _her_ hideout, she had to get creative. Thankfully, Fallout had no lack of shrubbery, dead trees, old leaves, and plenty of other scenery objects that she could affect and move. Looking around to make sure the coast was clear of players, she quickly gathered up some random pieces of junk - empty Nuka Cola bottles, salt shakers, dead pieces of shrubbery and a few other odd pieces to pile on the sealed doorway to her hideout.

With that done she could make her way to the game's exit. _If only I didn't live so far from it…_

That as one thing that wasn't so great about her hideout, being so far from the game's exit made it rather dangerous. Her boss had warned her, on numerous occasions to always practice her way out. Just in case there was an emergency shut down of the game's servers. Something that apparently used to happen a lot when the game first launched.

 _Not that I have much choice…_ she thought with a depressive sigh. The internet wasn't always the safest place for anyone least of all her. She hated thinking about it, but deep down she knew that a simple virus scanner program would mistake her for something wretched and wouldn't hesitate to delete her. But she knew, she _knew_ that she wasn't some horrible virus. Even as she thought this, parts of her body twitched and electrified with a sickening red glow which was followed up by stinging pain. Biting her lip to ignore the pain, she trudged on while trying to focus on the task at hand.

Her thoughts began to wander, and it became very difficult to focus. _I'm not a virus!_ she thought. Just the mere idea angered her. She saw how others glanced at her on the internet, judging her every move. LIke she was gonna explode! The girl clenched her fists and continued to apply more and more pressure until she felt her fingernails break skin. Warm, wet blood could be felt all over her fingers as a torrent of red glitching vibrated through her arm.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch!" she screamed while the stinging pain continued. "I'm so stupid!"

Without thinking, she brought her now blooded hand to her forehead and continued to pound it again and again. "Stop glitching! Stop it!" she shouted. She was beyond livid with herself.

More red glitches swam around her body, but with every hit, she could sense the pain subsiding while everything seemed to slowly come under her control. Tears of anguish poured down her face though she was quick to wipe them away. Finally, after a few minutes of agonizing pain which seemed to last an eternity, it stopped. She was only five minutes away from her hideout and already she felt like a dirty, bloodied mess.

With a heavy sigh, Van trudged forward toward her goal. "I hate my life…"

* * *

"We found her yet?"

Ralph had spent the last fifteen minutes poking around the golf course. Looking for anything that seemed out of the ordinary since Vanellope had quickly pointed out that if she did live there, and she didn't belong there, it had to be a secret hideout.

He sighed. "No."

Vanellope scampered up back to his head and quickly lowered hers so they were face to face as she hung upside down. "How about now?"

"I can't see now and no!"

She giggled and leaned back while hugging his massive head for support. "You'd think this would be easier to find. But look at this place! It's messier than Tappers on a Saturday night!" Vanellope exclaimed while surveying the massive landfills of trash and other miscellaneous Fallout themed objects that were strewn everywhere and on everything. There wasn't a building in sight that didn't look at least a little dirty.

"Leapin gumballs! What's that smell?! It's horrible!" She covered her little nose with her hand which gave her voice a nasally sound, but she didn't care. "Smells worse than your breath a million times over, oh Sega it stinks!" she yelled. Tears started appearing in her eyes while her nostrils and throat started to sting.

"I don't…" he trailed off and glanced inside one of the half-destroyed homes that seemed to have a strange-looking keypad on the outside. In fact, all of them did and a quick check proved them all to be locked. But inside was what gave the two pause. A massive corpse of a twisted and broken mutant that had been half destroyed into a puddle of oozing green liquid, while the less destroyed side oozed and pussed with rotting skin and sickening blood.

"R- Ralph? C- can we lea- leave please?"

She felt her body shake and everything around her seemed to grow as sickening as the sight before them. She couldn't help herself. She knew it was just code and that no one had actually gotten hurt, but deep down something in her stirred. Vanellope clutched her head and started breathing out of control. _It's not real, it's not real, it's not real!_

The racer felt the ground around them rumble and she could just barely make out that they were moving, but she didn't care. She kept repeating the mantra in her head, but no matter how much she told herself that it wasn't real, it still felt real.

"Hey, uh, kid? We're away from the smell. You okay?"

Her body continued to shake out of control. It didn't matter that the smell was supposedly gone, she could still sense it. Clear as day. Facing Turbo on a bad day would have been preferable to seeing _that_ , she decided.

Suddenly, her whole world brightened significantly as a farm, fuzzy feeling radiated throughout her form. She blinked and glanced down to find Ralph smiling at her and giving her a hug. Vanellope blinked and sniffled a bit.

"Uh, s- sorry, big guy," she said. _What the heck was that, girl?_

"You okay. Seriously, are you okay?"

She hesitated and gave a pensive nod. "Uh, I am now. T- thanks. I don't know what came over me."

Ralph squinted his eyes and examined her all over, making her blush. "You seem fine. Does, uh, Slaughter Race not have anything like that?"

"N- no blood," she said. "It's not like I can't handle that!" she exclaimed, though her voice squeaked a tad.

"Right," he replied.

She pouted and shook her head. She could feel her cheeks warming and she _hated_ that feeling. "It was just really, um…" she tried to search for the right word but she had it all along. "Scary. Okay, that was kind of scary."

"Oh? That's mighty mature of you for admitting that, princess."

She scowled. "Ew! Next, you'll be telling me I should act more proper, like Gene or something."

Ralph scoffed and shook his head. "Fat chance. But I meant it, girl. It's okay to be scared, you know."

Shamefully, Vanellope pinched the bridge of her nose and looked away. "Yes, thank you. Can we just keep looking now?"

"Sure kid, sure."

* * *

By the time Van had reached the portal exit, she felt exhausted. Fallout's sun and weather system may have been virtual, but to her, they felt all too real. _Just a little more._

The final fifty feet that ended outside the portal left her worn out and she had no choice but to sit on the ground so she could catch her breath. "When was the last time I slept?"

 _If I don't count being knocked out… forever ago,_ she admitted in her head. Thankfully, while the internet had no end of virus scanners all over, the in-between spaces of programs and the web were usually safe. So safe in fact that she had spent many a night just drifting between door to door, itching to find a peaceful place so she could rest.

"Not much in the way of beds or bathrooms though…" she mumbled depressingly. But it was truly better than nothing.

The ex-racer took a seat on the cold floor and sighed. "Just need to rest for a minute. Just a minute," she assured herself. A horrible weight of guilt, worry, and anguish about everything seemed far less important. Just the very act of resting to her brought up a hint of joy which was always rare. At least she thought so.

With no use for the Pip-Boy, she set it in her little backpack and slowly brought her arm up so her head could rest on it. "Just a little rest…"

While it was a terrible idea, Van could sense sleep overtake her. _Do I even wanna sleep?_

She pondered her predicament while her mind struggled to stay awake. Just thinking about sleep brought back some painful memories that she would rather forget.

" _What is this? Boss! W- what's going on?!"_

Van blinked awake, unaware of how long she had dozed off. "Don't think about that day…" she hissed to herself. It was a stupid painful memory but she couldn't stop thinking about it if she tried. "Don't…"

" _-Sorry, but it would appear that a part of your code is corrupted-"_

"Stop!"

" _-Need to be far more careful-"_

" _-Deletion is a possibility on the net-"_

Over and over her memories poured from her mind. With everyone, Van pounded her head on the concrete floor. It served as an incredibly poor substitute for a nice drug, but after a while, it did the job. After three solid minutes of what she would consider to be torture, it was over with. The memories stopped and her glitching ceased. The pain remained, but that was to be expected.

With a trembling hand, she felt up to her forehead and sighed in relief. "No blood this time… yay," she said with very little enthusiasm. She considered using one of her comfort canisters, but that was _very_ dangerous thinking.

"I don't even know how I got out that day… running into that big weird guy." she shuddered at the thought.

If there was one rule when it came to her little comfort it was that you _never_ did it outside of a program or game. It was just too dangerous and you could end up wandering anywhere.

 _Or into anyone_ , she thought miserably. _Still…_

She brought her bag toward her face and dug into the pack, rummaging around. She wasn't really even sure why she was bothering, but a part of her needed to see that they were there. Finally, her hand brushed alongside a few dark green metal canisters and she let go of the breath she didn't know she was holding. She couldn't describe just how warm and fuzzy they made her feel and for a single moment, everything felt fully at peace.

Suddenly a massive slamming noise caused Van's heart to jump out of her skin. She looked up, shocked to see a human hand poking out of the game's portal entrance. Almost as if it were trying to claw its way out, but couldn't quite manage. A sickening red glitch started to interact with Fallout's entrance portal and the stranger's hand.

" **LET ME OUT! YOU LET US DIE!** "

Van's felt her eye twitch from fear and she resisted the urge to scream. Even if she really, _really_ wanted to.

 _Sh- it can't get out. It's a glitch. It can't get out. It can't get out. It can't get out!_

Then she saw the hand reach out even further and that's when she bolted for it back into the internet, all the while thinking how things had gotten so bad. Tears and pain had become so commonplace that it hardly even phased her. She felt like crying and certainly almost did, but what would be the point?

After minutes of running, she slowly slumped down onto the floor. All the while various games and internet avatars looked on in pity. She couldn't even work up the nerve to scowl at them.

 _Can't be real. She can't be real!_

She clutched her head in fear. Had she just unleashed a virus into _Fallout_? Could she even come back?! "T- they'll do a- an emergency patch. A- and everything will be fine," she assured herself. While she spoke, her trembling hands caressed one of her comfort canisters. Inside her backpack, however, something caught her eye. A beeping quest contract disc.

 _Should I contact him? He told me to relax._

She thought about and quickly scowled. "He didn't even believe me. Forget it."

The contract continued to beep and with a heavy sigh, she picked it up. "I guess it might keep my mind off of this."

Still, even as she spoke, she continued to glance around nervously. Wondering if a zombie monster virus version of her long-dead friend was going to jump her. Her other hand clutched onto a _Fallout_ plasma rifle found in her bag. She clutched it _very_ tightly.

* * *

 **Authors Notes:**

 **And there we have it. A new chapter and it only took me... infinity to finish it. I have my reasons: Work, other stories, being a perfectionist, always striving to be a better writer which usually causes me to overthink things, working on a video game solo. Etc...**

 **I also tried an experimental story that I swiftly deleted. I don't think anyone was interested and I personally wasn't all too impressed with my work. I held back too much, maybe.**

 **I re-wrote plenty of this chapter several times and it's all been mental torture for me, but hopefully, you all enjoyed it. On another note, Fallout 76 finally has NPCs! It's still not a great game by any stretch of the imagination and has more glitches than Van on a drug trip (I'm awful), but it was a free update and it's kind of fun. I am sad that they didn't replace all of the robot NPCs with real ones like Rose, but whatever. I guessed wrong, so sue me.**

 **Thank you all for reading my work and sticking with me. If anyone wishes to join a Wreck-It Ralph! Themed Discord server then send me a PM.**


	7. Chapter Six: Welcome Back

Van eventually slowed to a near crawl and figured that glancing behind her back was no longer necessary. She took the time to wipe the blood off her forehead with her sleeve and carefully glanced at her hands. "Looks… puffy," she noted with just a hint of worry. The blood from earlier had dried up, but it was still very much present.

She glanced around and noted that she was on yet another random part of the net. Various characters and avatars weaved around her, but otherwise, she went unnoticed. She slumped onto the floor again and closed her eyes. _The contract says I'm near at least. Never been here, though._ It wasn't that uncommon to find undiscovered sectors on the internet being the internet and all. The place was gigantic and always expanding.

"It looks sort of… bright?" she mumbled while glancing around.

She read a giant neon sign blasting pink into the void that read _BuzzTube an Algorithm for YouTube_. She had a vague recollection of what it was for, but never really had a reason to come around that place. In fact, unlike most internet users, a trendy looking place like BuzzTube was fairly dangerous for her.

Her right eye twitched and she moaned. "Stupid virus scanners."

In fact, Van knew she wasn't welcome in most places. Her unstable code could easily be mistaken for a virus. Small websites and the odd game here and there were easy to get through. _Firewalls are a cakewalk_ , she thought with a tiny smirk. Her boss had shown her how to get through them.

 _Not that I should have to! I'm not a virus!_

That thought rang more true than any other. But wishes weren't real, the internet wasn't a fairy tale and she knew that. Of all the places to go, _BuzzTube_ and _YouTube_ were controlled by _Google_ who was very paranoid about security. She couldn't get into any of their sites without a virus scanner deleting her.

"But Boss knows that…" she mumbled while looking around. "So why come here?"

After a quick trip around the outside of the building, she eventually found the correct spot to meet for the contract. Growing a bit bored and very tired, she slumped up to a wall and slowly lowered herself to the ground. There, everything felt almost at peace. It was cold, sure, but peaceful, where no one could bother her. Even if her whole body ached, it still felt good to just relax.

"Kid, what the hey are you doing down there?"

Van mumbled something incomprehensible and glanced up. Her eyes blinked a few times until her fuzzy sight finally focused. Standing before her was none other than a strange-looking glowing blue lady. That was the best description she could muster up and she had no doubt that whoever she was, she wasn't her contact.

"Uh, resting," Van said with a shrug.

"Uh, yeah. I can see that, baby. Do you wanna come inside?"

Immediately red flags went off; it wasn't common for others to up and invite _her_ into anywhere. Van squinted her eyes and studied her suspiciously. While she did this, the strange woman did the same.

"Girl, what happened to you… well, _you_? Is that blood?!"

Van had enough and rolled her eyes, took a deep breath, and shocked the woman by spitting on the floor. "Look, lady, I think you got me mixed up with someone else. I'm waiting for someone here," she said while her right hand lifted up a blinking quest contract which the woman eyed. "So beat it," Van said and looked away.

Annoyingly, she could still sense the presence of the overbearing woman who continued to stare. Van kept staring at the blinking item and didn't dare lookup.

"You really aren't her, are you?"

With a _very_ heavy sigh, Van blinked and glanced up at the woman and scowled. "I don't know who this 'her' is, but I'm gonna wager a guess and-" whatever Van tried to get out was interrupted as her body glitched in various places. A particular painful sting dotted every fiber of her being and she had to resist the urge not to cry. "Dammit! Stupid, fucken, glitches!"

No longer caring about appearances, Van smacked her head several times, but it was no use. Raw, unbridled pain coursed through her body as she continued to smack herself over and over. At one point, she switched to pounding her fists into her chest until the bright red pixelated mess that was her body stabilized. When it was over with, she panted for air and gently closed her eyes.

"T- that was fun," she stuttered. "If you're still standing there, I'm not who you're looking for. Goodbye."

"Honey, do you wanna come inside and talk about this? I can give you a safe place to rest."

"I'm fine here."

"You don't look fine," the woman pointed out.

Van felt one of her eyes twitch in annoyance. "Yeah, and you look like a blue pixie from an abandoned game."

"Hmm, point taken I guess. Never been very fond of what I got, but it was what I was programmed with. But you seem like you really need some help here."

Van's hand raised into the air, telling her to stop talking. "What I _need_ is for you to get back to your stupid website or whatever and piss off! You're giving me a headache!"

But she didn't even budge, much to her annoyance. "You from an arcade, from a game called Sugar Rush? Hmm?"

Another eye twitch. Van was seething at the woman. "Y- you-"

"Are you lost? Get disconnected from it?"

Van held her head and whimpered. Memories started flying by at an impossible rate. Her eyes closed tightly and she felt it very difficult to breathe or to focus on anything.

 _Stay Sweet!_

 _It's time for The Swizz to race! Let's go, princess!_

 _I'm glad you're my friend, Vanellope._

Her body ached as she continued to shake on the ground. She could sense various game and internet characters gathering, no doubt to stare and point and laugh. But the memories kept coming! Over and over they continued their torment and no matter how hard she tried, they would never stop.

 _STOP!_ she tried thinking, but that mere thought was drowned away by all the noise.

 _We need to get out of here! Gather everyone! The game's being shut down!_

 _The arcade is closing, Vanellope. This is it, we need to leave._

 _I love you and I always will._

The pain was so unbearable, she felt her body go almost numb which was a welcome feeling. But still, her brain continued to torment her. "M- make it stop!" she screamed.

"Sorry girl, this is for your own good!"

For a split second, Van recognized that the back of her head had been struck and that her glitching had ceased. The pain was still there, but soon she knew no more.

* * *

" _I've been informed by my associates of your… unique situation."_

 _Vanellope and her fellow Sugar Rush Racers all stood together as a group. The details of the stranger's office, if it could even be called that, were murky and fuzzy. But Vanellope could see the strange digital appreciation, clear as day. It was best described as a silhouette of a human skull who deformed and animated as it spoke, but only just. Every once in a while, the hologram that made up the skull would flicker in an unstable manner before righting itself, only to shift the Skull's previous emotion to something else. It was eerie, to say the least._

" _That's a funny way of saying some creep tried to take over our game and ruined it for everyone!" A girl screamed from behind them. Vanellope glanced behind her and spotted none other than Jubilenna Bing-Bing, standing there with a scowl on her face while her fists shook with raw anger. When the two met eyes, Jubilenna looked away in shame, and Vanellope could only frown._

" _Forgive my… choices of words," the hologram said while it flickered from a joyful smirk to a scowling frown. "My… apologies," it said. Every pause in his words caused the image to flicker. "But I believe we can all form a mutually… beneficial relationship."_

" _We don't have a real reason to tr-" Vanellope tried to finish but a particularly painful glitch caused her entire body to quake. Everything got fuzzy and she felt incredibly queasy. She felt a few of the racer's hands on her shoulder which made her feel a bit better, but not much. "To trust you…"_

 _The skull figure was silent for a while, perhaps too long. All the while it shifted through various emotions as if that were its way of processing things. "I suppose not, but we've provided you all shelter and haven't harmed you. Surely that goes a long way to trust. No?"_

" _Look, we're thankful for what you did for us. But, frankly, we don't see a reason to stick around anymore," Taffyta Muttonfudge said after stepping forward._

Took the words right out of my mouth, _Vanellopoe thought._ Some leader I am. I can't even speak up when I need to!

" _Let me ask you this at least," the skull exclaimed as the racers seemed ready to leave. "What is it that you… children desire most? The answer may be… obvious, but I'd like to hear it from your mouths."_

" _Well, that's a dumb question. Duh, we wanna go home," one of the boys said, one Rancis._

" _To Sugar Rush? To your old arcade machine. To live the glory days of… racing and to serve your… purpose?"_

" _It's a dumb fantasy, buster. We get it," Taffyta said, sounding quite annoyed._

 _The skull shifted through several emotions before seeming to go for broke with a massive grin. "Nothing is impossible, little lady. Though to achieve your goals, you may need to… adjust your expectations."_

 _Vanellope sighed and shook her head. "That sounds a lot like wishful thinking. Why should we trust you? We know how the i- internet w- works," she said while her body glitched some more. Taffyta put her hand on her shoulder, but Vanellope gently brushed it off. "N- no one does something for free!"_

" _Quite right. I propose an exchange. I and my associates shall work toward bringing you back to your home in a… manner of speaking. And you racers, meanwhile, work for us. You will have shelter, work, and a purpose. Along with… payment. Does that sound fair?"_

" _I don't I-"_

" _If anything the shelter alone should be… adequate accommodation. The payment is merely a bonus."_

 _Vanellope didn't even have the will to reply. She glanced at her fellow racers, a shameful expression etched on her features and shrugged._

 _Another racer, one_ _Adorabeezle Winterpop_ _stepped forward and shook her head. "A manner of speaking isn't the same as the real thing. We have to try and find another arcade, one with a Sugar Rush machine. We can't waste time working for you, bub."_

" _An interesting solution to your problem. However, the odds of finding such a place through the vast internet on your own are slim to none. You are all… free to leave. But it would not be a wise decision. This… place, the internet is far larger than the… facade outside would have you all believe. You could be searching for decades and still not find what you need. Even if you did manage, by some… miracle to find your goal. Arcades are on a downward spiral. Humans are using them less and less. Nothing lasts forever… but I do have a solution of sorts."_

 _Vanellope saw the always proud Adorabeezle look away, deep in thought. She had no rebuttal._

" _Besides, you have yet to hear my full proposal."_

 _Vanellope felt Taffyta arms on her, supporting her. Without even fully realizing it, she had grown dizzy. She hated feeling this way, she was weak. Her glitching had taken a great deal out of her._

" _And that is?" Taffyta asked._

 _The skull's image changed to that of a smirk. "Are you all perhaps familiar with emulators?"_

* * *

It took Van several minutes to fully comprehend that she was even awake. Her eyes remained closed and she felt so exhausted she nearly passed out a second time, but she held on.

Red flags went off in Van's head. She struggled to get up, to do something, to even blink but she could barely bring herself to breath. Some heavy footsteps could be heard to her side along with a sighing voice.

"It took us a while to get you inside. You're lucky my little slice of heaven doesn't use the good virus scanners, or you'd be history, kid."

Van clenched her fist, trying to muster up all her strength, but all it did was make her dizzy. Which was an incredibly unpleasant feeling when you were already laying down. She moaned and the strange woman from earlier sighed.

"I think I can help you. Mind you I'm not certain, but pretty sure. You'll just have to trust me."

 _Have to trust me… have to trust me…_ Those words echoed in Van's mind like a fresh wound that continued to bleed. Struggling with the pain and her ever-increasing dizziness, Van lifted her right hand and gently clenched her heart. The kind of pain she felt was different. It wasn't raw and it certainly wasn't from glitching, no. It was an ache, an old wound that caused her heart to beat faster and faster, spiraling out of control. Her fight-or-flight response felt like it was on fire, begging her to do both. To run and flee and then run some more.

"I mean, trust can go a long-"

Using her free hand, Van slapped the woman's arm away and screamed. "Get the hell away from me! I told you to leave me alone. I said to leave me be and I was fine. I'm fi- fine, got it?!"

She stood up and suddenly the world felt incredibly fuzzy as her mind tried to make sense of up and down. _So dizzy…_

"Girl, you can't just… You... Lay down right now! You're hurt!"

Van spit on the ground again, causing a miniature pool of blood to form. She seethed up at the strange woman and slowly backed up.

"If you take one step closer I swear on my dead cabinet that I'll rip your code out!"

Van grabbed her bag and darted out of the strange place in a hurry. She felt exhausted, angry and incredibly dizzy. But one thought drove her to keep going, escape. She somehow was able to exit the web page without so much as a virus scan and took the opportunity to jump over the edge of a balcony barrier, falling down three stories before swiftly landing on her feet. She ran and ran. Details and faces meant nothing, it was all a dizzy blur. She just had to escape.

* * *

Van collapsed in a random alleyway. She was beyond exhausted. The raw anger she felt toward the blue stranger was nothing when weighed against her physical pain. She spit up some blood on the ground and whimpered. "Trust? Stupid internet."

No one on the internet could be trusted. That was rule number one. Sure, she had acquaintances in some games like Fallout that she was civil to, but they weren't friends. "The only reason I trust Boss is that he's never betrayed me."

There was also the small fear that he may or that he had in the past, but as far as she could judge, Boss was _mostly_ trustworthy. But the lot on the internet were all scum, as far as she cared.

"Little One, are you in?"

Van moaned and carefully dug in her backpack for a portable radio. After several moments of stumbling and dizzy episodes, she found it. "Y- yeah Boss. I'm in."

"Good. Are you unharmed?"

"Pfft, yeah. Stupid blue lady thing tried to kidnap me. I got away."

There was a long pause, no doubt her Boss had been calculating things. "Are you certain it was a kidnapping?"

Van squinted her eyes at the internet phone and resisted a very powerful urge to scowl. "It sure felt like it!"

"Then explain to me what happened. Please."

Van moaned and rubbed the back of her head. "I don't even remember what happened before I woke up! This mission's a disaster, boss!" And it was true, her memories felt fuzzy.

Even saying that much drained what little energy she had. Around her, the world started to spin and she felt more than just woozy. It _almost_ felt good, like parts of her mind were being detached from all of the pain and she was floating. _Heh, my hands look pretty,_ she thought airily.

"Now now, mistakes happen. The contact for that contract has been redirected to a new location. If I'm not mistaken, you are near. That is if you wish to finish it? I can always have an associate take over for you? No harm is done. You can even rest at my place… if you'd like. I know the accommodations aren't very satisfactory, but surely you can manage?"

Trying not to get lost in the happy haze, Van shook her head and the world _almost_ righted itself. "N- no s- it's fine," she slurred. "It doesn't look that far. And I'm not tired," she exclaimed with a tad more energy.

"It's your choice to make. But just know that the… offer is on the table."

She shut the radio down and slowly stood. As she did, the world became even more confusing. "Hmm, need to check the map," she mumbled.

It didn't take her that long to find the package. After a few odd glances from the internet store, they gladly relinquished the package and she quickly got out of there.

The instructions on the contract were skimmed and she realized that she was mostly in the right area. "Wants me to go to some arcade. Litwaks? Whatever."

Just the very word, arcade, used to rouse excitement in her. Now she just felt numb to it all. She stumbled her way forward like a drunk hobo, but something kept her going. _I feel so good_ , she thought happily. She cracked a tiny smile and continued to trudge forward uncoordinated. Part of her even considered downing her last comfort can, but that would be silly. "Still on the web," she mumbled and then broke down giggling.

As she walked, she waved her hands about and liked how they duplicated themselves. LIke she wasn't really there. "Did I take it or something?"

She reached into her bag and found the prized canister, still sealed and unused. "No. So weird."

Everything around her body felt heavy. Just lifting the canister may as well have weighed a million pounds. "Feel so… w- weird," she mumbled.

After a few more steps, her whole body tripped over something and she went tumbling into somebody. Her canister flew off into another direction, but she felt too dizzy to care.

"S- sorry…" she whispered.

"Oh goodness, it's no problem."

Her vision still blurry, Van could just barely make out a slightly taller game character who seemed almost entirely decked out in something white. "Who are you?" _My tongue feels tingly_.

"The name's Turbo, little girl. Hmm, you don't look so good."

The stubby man called Turbo surprised Van by helping her onto her feet. "But I feel _good_ ," she said, putting extra emphasis on the last word. It was true, everything felt amazing!

"I, uh, see that. Well, miss G _ood_. Where ya headin'?"

Van slowly blinked as her sluggish, hazy brain tried to come up with a reply. "L- Litwaks Arfcade!" she lisped. _That didn't sound right_ , she thought and giggled again.

Turbo's eyes widened in shock. "An arcade you say? May, I haven't been in one in ages and ages. You wouldn't mind if I accompanied you, would you?"

"Uh… no?"

"Splendid!"

"W- wait," Van said and reached into her pack. _Feels so good, but there has to be something wrong with me_ , she thought. Surprised that she even had that much lucidity to think straight.

After several failed attempts at rummaging around, her fingers finally clutched a small device. She brought it up to her mouth and inhaled deeply. At once, everything became perfectly clear. All the fuzziness and giddy feelings vanished, replaced with nothing but herself. She felt immense shame, knowing that she had been parading around the internet like some drunk clown, probably drooling on herself. She remembered what happened the night before and knew why she did it.

The exhaustion and immense pain vanished, replaced with new found energy. She took a deep breath and smiled slightly. "B- better."

"Oh, my lads, what in the heck was that?"

"X-Cell. It's from Fallout. I don't use them that much, you can get addicted. But it made me feel so much better," she said, her eyes closed. She shuddered and felt an immense feeling of euphoria, followed by even more clarity as the drug pumped its way through her code.

"Uh-huh. Th- that seems kind of dangerous, kid."

She blinked and examined the spent drug in her hands. _They are dangerous_ , she thought. She couldn't just outright deny that.

"Look, I don't know how you got those, but take it from a real racer. Drugs are for losers. Heh, like we all used to say: SAY NO TO DRUGS. Granted, I think they were merely talking about the users and not us game characters, but you get the point. Right?"

 _A racer? That's interesting_ , she thought. Then she slowly shook her head. "Uh, yeah. It's Turbo right?" she asked and he quickly nodded. "I gotta go finish my mission. Thanks for the advice and… helping me up," she said feeling quite embarrassed. "See ya," she said and walked off to pick up her comfort can.

"Wait, wait, wait!" She heard the funny-sounding man run-up to her and she paused, placing her hands on her hips. "I was just wondering if you wouldn't mind taking me to this arcade? I promise I don't bite," he said and gave her a creeping looking grin. His teeth had yellowed significantly, or perhaps that's how he had been programmed.

"I don't have any reason to trust you," Van said. She took a better glance at his clothing and almost smirked. "You really do look like a racer, er sort of." The man smiled even brighter but Van shook her head. "I'm sorry, I have to go."

She took a few steps and nearly tripped flat on her face, only to be caught by Turbo himself. "Woah there. Look, I don't mean any harm and you're clearly exhausted. If you really need to do this mission of yours, how about I help? I can just walk ya there, no problem."

"No thanks," she mumbled but already she could feel the previous X-Cell wear off somewhat. She knew they didn't last forever.

She tried again, this time getting much further, only to trip yet again. She _hated_ to admit it, but Turbo's hands supporting her oddly felt soothing.

"Think of it as payment? Yeah, that's what seems fair. No?"

Van looked away rather annoyed. "What do you mean?"

"Simple. I guide you to this arcade and in exchange, well, as silly as it sounds. You let me come with. I've been itching to visit one for so long, kid. You have no idea. Sound fair?"

 _Hmm, I do kind of need him._ While it was true that no one could be trusted, as far as she was concerned, trade could at least be reasonable. You wanted something on the internet, you paid for it. She had something he wanted and she needed his help. She took a deep breath and finally nodded.

"Fine, I guess. Err, thanks," she said very quietly.

"Turbo Tastic! Then let's- Wait a minute!"

"What?"

"I don't even know your name, silly!"

She blushed and nodded. "Oh, heh. Just call me Van, Turbo."

"Hmm, something tells me that's not quite your real name. Nickname?"

"Yep," she said, already sounding more annoyed.

"Right right, well, let's get to it, Van."

* * *

The ride to Litwak Arcade's modem was awkward to say the least. Turbo would occasionally glance in Van's direction, but she didn't so much as blink.

"You know, not quite used to this new fangled tech. When my game was new, all we had was a trolly that got you in and out of the power strip."

"Hmm," Van mumbled and gave a small nod. Though she wasn't really listening. _I feel so tired._

"'Course, I always thought it would be a race car. You know, it took me weeks to work up the courage just to leave! Oh, that was forever ago though."

"Right."

She wanted to be angry or annoyed at Turbo for breaking the silence, but then she just felt horribly conflicted. Should she be angry that the situation was so awkward? Annoyed that Turbo kept talking? Or both for just how exhausted she was.

 _I'm so tired._

"I hope you don't mind if I blabber. I've been told I can go too far in that regard, you know? At least by my racing buddies. Boy, I think I'd go crazy without them."

At that moment, Van wanted nothing more than to chug her comfort can. It became an awful itch. She couldn't stop herself from scratching her legs, which became even itchier as time grew on.

"'Course, after our game broke down, all we had was each other. Our arcade was kind of on the way out so we escaped to the internet. But we stayed friends, just us three. I would have invited them, but I wanna make sure it's safe you know."

Van's eye twitched and she started breathing erratically. _All we had was each other_.

"Ah, but I'd do anything for those two numbskulls. Sometimes, kid, all you got is your friends. Heh, you know I didn't even ask. What game were you part of?"

Van felt her hand hastily reach for her chest. She felt her heart beating rapidly out of control. "S- Sugar Rush," she stuttered.

"Sugar Rush? I think I've heard of that! Go-Kart racing game right?!"

Her face went pale and she slowly nodded.

"Got a candy and dessert theme to it? Well, it had better for a name called Sugar Rush!"

 _I'm so tired…_

"I got to visit that game once. Ho boy, I'd never seen so much food in one place! Such a wonderful day! I think those giant gumdrops in the icing lakes were my favorite. So much sugar…" he said while licking his lips. His voice sounded distant but with a tiny hint of elation.

She quickly nodded and tried not to think about it. She wanted to scream at Turbo to shut his trap, but she barely had the energy to stand, let alone yell.

"Guess it doesn't take a genius to tell that you're no longer, you know, part of that?"

Van bit her lip to the point of bleeding. She felt a single tear leak from her eye and she quickly shook her head.

"Oh goodness. I'm sorry! I didn't mean to open an old wound. Are you okay? You've barely said anything..."

Van whimpered and closed her eyes. She tried to will the dark thoughts away. It was almost like the opposite of serendipity. "I'm so tired. I've tried and tried to push forward for so long."

"Oh goodness! Do I know how that feels!"

"I don't even know how I got here," she mumbled just as the digital vehicle dropped them off at their final destination.

Turbo looked momentarily confused. "You don't? You traveled here with… oh, you're not talking literally, are you?"

Van shook her head. "I tried and I tried. I fought for so long. I'm just so tired," she said just as tears started to pool around her eyes.

She could sense Turbo eyeing her, but for once he said nothing as if he knew she needed to get this out. The duo stepped out onto the landing platform inside the modem and stopped walking entirely.

"We tried to stay together. S- some days I didn't even eat or sleep. I'm so tired. But I had to. I just kept telling myself one more day. One more job and it would be finished. I'm so tired."

She sensed Turbo looking around the place, maybe trying to find the exit. But she kept talking.

"After the first of us disappeared, I fought harder," she said and carefully took a seat on the cold floor, right next to the increasingly confused man. "We all did. I'm so tired," she repeated. Her body started to shake and again everything felt dizzy and fuzzy. Her voice began to crack, which made her feel awful. Like she'd given up.

"If I could just keep going. I'd do anything for them and I tried so hard," she said and started to break down. She could hear herself crying and whimpering. But she felt numb; the pain that tears were meant to ease just wasn't coming. "I'm so tired… I'm so ti- tired," she said with a large hiccup. Tears and snot went everywhere. She wanted desperately to just sleep somewhere safe, but that was an impossibility.

Turbo, for his part, leaned down and looked her straight in the eye. "Child. I don't know what pain you've been through. But it really sounds like you've been… holding things in."

"Y- yeah," she said and she felt her body glitch. The stinging pain may as well have felt like nothing.

"Jumping quarters! Did you glitch?!"

Turbo backed away in fear and she quietly nodded. A whining noise could be heard coming from her. "Ye- yes. I glitch, okay?!." She felt her breathing become worse, ragged even. Becoming faster and faster. "It happened because I stayed too long! But I had to! I had to, for them!" she screamed.

After that, Van couldn't work up the nerves to say anything else. She wept and cried and howled and sniffled. She could hardly even remember the last time she had said so much, and to a stranger no less! _So tired…_

She felt Turbo's hand awkwardly try to reach out to her, but once she glitched again he quickly pulled back in fright.

"J- just go," she mumbled.

"I don't think… that is to say-"

She sniffled again and took a very hasty, shuddering breath. "O- our trade is done. Just please leave me alone."

Van stared off into space. Her constant shed of tears showed no sign of stopping; she wasn't even sure herself if she could make them stop. Slowly, very slowly, Turbo stepped away. With every step, she could sense the man growing more and more distant until she heard a tiny electric hitch as he disappeared into the socket of the modem.

For a few minutes, the crying actually helped her feel better. She felt guilty for giving in, but she couldn't deny the relief the tears eventually brought. Even if it was very little.

"S- so tired," she said and glanced around. _Do I even care about this mission?_

She dropped her bag to the ground with a thud and rummaged through it. Carefully, she lifted up the package, but a shiny glint caught her eye. The awful itch returned and she couldn't help but lick her lips. Her hands shook and she bit her lip again, _hard_.

 _So tired…_

Van wanted nothing more than to give in. She was on an internet router, not comfortable, but probably the safest place you could be. Even if she had been high off her butt on the stuff. There would be no harm in downing one.

 _Except for me_ , she reminded herself. Suddenly an addicting, hopeful mind turned sour. Everything came crashing down and the maddening depression returned full force. She grabbed her hair and screamed. It was maddening, what she felt when she glanced at the can. She _knew_ they were awful for her and just what they were doing to her. Boss _knew_ just the same, but he was perfectly fine using them as her payment!

Biting into her now blood-soaked lip again, she screamed and continued to pull at her hair. _I'm so tired of this!_ Her shaky free hand reached out for the can and she held it toward her mouth. Her whole body shook as fresh sweat coated every last bit of her skin. Her clothes felt heavy, dirty even. At that moment she could sense every rip and tear in her costumed attire. Van could feel all of her bruises and cuts and scrapes and all of the blood.

Her ragged, messy hair felt particularly itchy along with her grimy skin. Her hand continued to shake and for a split second she considered just getting it over with. _Just one can_ , she thought as her free hand hovered over the opening to unseal it.

 _I'm so tired_.

" _Van, we can't stay here any longer! We have to leave, now."_

She felt her handshake even more as she squeezed the metal container with all of her might. Raw anger and hatred fueled by her memories.

 _Vanellope glanced back at her friends and shook her head. "Not until I get every last racer out. It's my duty!"_

 _The children racers glanced at one another while the castle grounds started to shake and rumble._

" _It's not safe, Van! If we wait too long-"_

" _Then leave!" Van snapped, making the three jump. "I'm_ not _leaving until I find the last two. Taffyta and Candlehead are still back there!"_

Van hesitated just as she was about to gorge the can down. She knew it would be the easiest thing in the world to do. A euphoric escape that promised a blanket and shield from her cold, depressing memories. Suddenly, Van screamed again and chucked the offending can halfway across the modem. The drug exploded upon impact, spilling the precious drugged juices in a bloody red puddle.

Van sank to her knees and wept openly.

It took her a very long time until she stopped. She could feel herself sniffling and hiccuping as the world seemed to momentary right itself. Her dizziness and overbearing exhaustion seemed so far away. And for a quiet moment, everything felt tranquil. She gave a hesitant smile and a very loud and long sniff to the cold air.

 _Not as tired…_ she thought. Van was far from happy, but she couldn't deny that the heavy crying was something she desperately needed. Even if her mind had denied it all, her body knew all too well. She took a quick glance at the spilled drug and for the first time in a very long time, she felt proud of herself.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** Another chapter down. I would love to hear some comments on what people think. As always, if anyone is interested in joining a Wreck-It Ralph Fanfic themed server, just send me a PM!


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